Vaccine War

More than a race, it's a real war . Fought with every weapon available, first and foremost money, and against the backdrop of the China-United States duel that is shaping the history of the new century. A power struggle for the vaccine , fueled by national selfishness, stronger than ever, and contrary to one of the most important goals set out in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Goal number 3, which calls for widespread health and well-being across the planet.

The goal of achieving a definitive cure for Covid-19 within a reasonably short timeframe has become a priority worldwide, and not just for health reasons. The fate of the economic recovery is at stake . And whoever gets a vaccine first will restart the entire economy first. Then there are geopolitical interests : reaching the finish line first for the vaccine means establishing himself as the world's leading power, something that would be very useful for Donald Trump in a presidential election year. Conversely, a Chinese overtaking would risk causing him to lose crucial support, a flag easily waved by his Democratic opponents: "Trump has done nothing but preach American first , but meanwhile the Chinese are being protected from the coronavirus before the Americans..." Thus, the race for the Covid-19 vaccine, once a great opportunity to reduce healthcare gaps around the world and bring peoples of the North and South closer together, is turning into a war between rich countries at the expense of poor countries . A great opportunity for change has been squandered.

VACCINE WAR BETWEEN CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES

According to the World Health Organization, more than one hundred vaccines are currently in preclinical trials, while only eight are in clinical trials . And here's where things get complicated, as four of these eight vaccines come from China. Among these is the vaccine developed by Cansino Biologics, the first Chinese biotech company to reach Phase 2 of human trials, thanks in part to close collaboration with the Chinese military and the Chinese army. Another Chinese company, Sinovac, also under pressure from the military, has already announced that it could begin vaccine production by July.

RACE FOR THE SARS-COV-2 VACCINE

So, Xi Jinping is pushing hard to reach the finish line first with a vaccine, thereby relaunching the economy at full capacity and ahead of all other major nations on the planet. The United States is trying to respond with equal speed, and Trump is banking on Operation Warp Speed . Tens of billions of dollars in investments, massive use of advanced technologies, and maximum collaboration between public and private institutions: with these ingredients, the plan calls for distributing, obviously in America, the first 100 doses of the vaccine in November 2020, and another 200 million doses within the following two months. These are frightening numbers, which Trump is dreaming of, despite scientists being very cautious about the timing of the vaccines and predicting a wait of at least 12-18 months , especially since the official arrival of the preventive treatment for Covid-19 would coincide with the presidential election. And it could allow Trump to close the gap that polls currently place on the incumbent president over his Democratic rival, Biden.

On the other hand, America has the resources to play on multiple fronts in this vaccine war. Returning to the shortlist of the magnificent eight already in clinical trials , excluding the four coming from China, two come from the United States; one is the result of a collaboration between the German company BioNTec , the American company Pfizer , and the Chinese company Fosun Pharma ; the last is the fruit of research by the University of Oxford with the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. The Americans have also secured, by funding research already in its early stages, the possible discovery of a vaccine by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi.

This story is emblematic of how this vaccine war will end, and who will pay the price , starting with the poorest nations. In perfect good faith, and perhaps also out of devotion to his financiers, Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi, let slip the truth about the vaccine race: "When we get there, and hopefully soon, most of the pre-orders will go to those who have invested in our research to protect their populations. That is, the United States of America..." All hell broke loose. The entire French government took to the field in protest, and President Emmanuel Macron immediately excommunicated Sanofi's top management with these words: "The vaccine is a public good, outside of market logic. We need coordinated multilateral responses to make it available to everyone at the same time." Faced with the excommunication from the Elysée, Sanofi's CEO had to partially backtrack, but Macron's words, in light of the facts we are reporting, are truly a concentration of hypocrisy and lack of credibility.

Contrary to what the French president claims, nothing in the pharmaceutical industry responds to market logic more than a vaccine. It's always been this way. And with Covid-19, it will be even worse, as the sums to be paid are enormous and exclude individual, small, and medium-sized nations from the equation. The second lie is the " coordinated multilateral response ," a lie inflated by false pro-European rhetoric, far removed from reality, and repeated even by European Commission leaders. Spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker, regarding the preventive remedy against Covid-19, simply calls for "solidarity and coordination" at the European level. Two things that were not seen in the critical phase of the pandemic , much less in the race for a vaccine.

CORONAVIRUS VACCINE

On the other hand, we need to be realistic here. The entire structure of global governance, starting with supranational bodies, is under threat, and has never been called into question like it is now. The latest case in point is the World Health Organization , where Trump has decided to step back, also using an argument that will be convincing to his country's public opinion: the $ 400 million paid annually to the WHO, compared to the $30 million paid by the Chinese. More than ten times that. But in general, all multilateral policies are in crisis, while national selfishness reigns supreme. And this is even more true for the race for a coronavirus vaccine.

With this level of American disengagement, and with tensions between the United States and China over the vaccine reminiscent of those between the United States and Russia during the race for research and space missions, Europe, grappling with a devastating economic and social crisis, risks becoming a dwarf in the midst of the chaos. A solitary voice in the wilderness. This was clearly evident in April, when the European Commission organized a global donor conference to fund research on a Covid-19 vaccine with the commitment to then make it available "to all," as Macron thundered from the Elysée Palace. Fortunately, the United States, Russia, India, Brazil, and Argentina did not show up at this conference, and China merely made an appearance by sending its ambassador to the European Union, devoid of any decision-making power.

WHO WILL WIN THE VACCINE WAR?

Among European countries, the United Kingdom (a former EU partner) is furthest along in the race for a vaccine , home to several multinational pharmaceutical companies and where the government has allocated nearly £50 million for two trials alone. Here, too, announcements are in the process of being made: AstraZeneca says it will have 100 million doses ready by the end of 2020 , with "absolute priority given to domestic distribution." Once again, economic and political interests come before citizens' health: reaching such a milestone, ahead of everyone else, would mean a significant boost to the UK's economy, and for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it would be a good opportunity to regain support during a period of extreme unpopularity.

ITALIAN CORONAVIRUS VACCINE

Finally , Italy . The Pomezia-based company IRBM participates in the AstraZeneca program with the University of Oxford , but has already signed a pre-emptive agreement with London: when the vaccine arrives, all the initial doses (30 million) will go to British citizens. None will go to Italians. Indeed, because ultimately, the war for the Covid-19 vaccine goes in the opposite direction to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which in goal number 3 calls for "Health and well-being for all at all ages." A recent precedent clearly illustrates how this horror film of national selfishness will end : the poorest countries, along with their populations, will pay the price. In 2009, there was the so-called swine flu, and all Western governments signed agreements with pharmaceutical companies to obtain the vaccine. At the time, Democrat Barack Obama was in the White House, but he failed to honor his commitment to provide the vaccine to poor countries, concentrating distribution within the United States. Conclusion: swine flu ultimately caused "only" 18 confirmed deaths. In reality, the victims were 575, concentrated in Africa and Southeast Asia. The vaccine never arrived there.

CORONAVIRUS: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

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