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Original title: Under pressure from the European Union, he “admitted his mistakes” and surrendered using the “stuck neck” clause against the UK.
The British-European vaccine dispute is over, how can we fix the unfair global distribution?
Source: Jiefang Daily
■ Reporter Liao Qin
Recently, the vaccine dispute that broke out between the EU and the UK finally ended with the “confession” of EU officials. However, public opinion believes that the “vaccine nationalism” reflected in this “vaccine situation” is alarming.
The new corona vaccine reached record speed in less than a year from scratch and vaccination began, bringing confidence and dawn to the world to overcome the epidemic. However, the various twists and turns in the vaccination process also indicate that there is no shortage of challenges along the way to combat the epidemic in the future.
The “breakdown of the confession” triggered a “showdown” between Britain and Europe
According to Reuters, on January 30 local time, EU officials admitted that it was a “mistake” to use the emergency provisions of the “Brexit” deal to restrict the export of vaccines to the UK and Northern Ireland. London said supply of the new corona vaccine is not expected to be interrupted. British Foreign Secretary Gove said on the same day that the European Union promised to cooperate with Britain to solve current problems.
This farce of “confession” and “understanding” is due to the vaccine turmoil in Britain and Europe that has been fermenting for over a week.
On January 22, British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca notified the European Union that a plant in Belgium affected vaccine production due to cell culture problems. In the first quarter of this year, the delivery of vaccines to the EU fell from the original 80 million doses to 31 million doses.
AstraZeneca’s tens of millions of vaccines were suddenly cut, and Pfizer, an American pharmaceutical company, was unable to deliver vaccines because a factory in Belgium adjusted its production capacity. And AstraZeneca’s “insensitive” statement has dealt a severe blow to the EU. The company stated that it would not be able to supply vaccines produced in the UK plant to the European Union before fulfilling its contract with London.
As a result, the annoyed EU did not hesitate to announce on the night of January 29 that it would use the emergency provisions of the “Brexit” deal to control the export of vaccines to the UK and Northern Ireland to avoid supply shortages. This move is believed to prevent Pfizer’s vaccine manufacturers from supplying the UK to the UK unless London shares the AstraZeneca vaccine with the EU. After all, the European Union has touched a red line after Britain’s “Brexit”, to prevent the EU from forming a “hard border” with Northern Ireland. Even the WHO has criticized the EU for controlling vaccine exports.
The EU abandons export controls
Under tremendous pressure, the EU withdrew its request after a few hours and no longer mentioned export controls. A “vaccine war” feared by the outside world died in the cradle.
The European Union’s approach seems “outrageous”, but in fact it has its last resort. Since the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe successively started vaccination in December last year, the European Union’s vaccination schedule has lagged far behind that of the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is now even more difficult to cope with late payments of vaccines. Furthermore, the EU suspects that the dose originally destined for Europe may have been transferred from AstraZeneca’s factory in Europe to the UK. To verify AstraZeneca’s claims that the factory had production problems, Belgian health officials even raided the local factory.
Xu Jianqing, director of the Institute of New and Reappearing Infectious Diseases at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, believes that it is normal to have problems in vaccine production. The reason for provoking international disputes is related to two factors. First, the current global control of the epidemic Anxiety is the second aspect to maintain the priority of national survival in one’s own country.
Professor Zha Daojiong, from the Peking University School of International Relations, noted that the vaccination confusion between the UK and Europe depends on the specific terms of the pre-sales contracts signed between vaccine companies, the EU and the UK. In the case of constant demand and limited production capacity, as long as the contract is fulfilled, the initiative of the company will be greater. As the supply and demand situation changes, the storm will subside. For the European Union and the British government, it is an option to approve more vaccine sources in the list of emergency products, but there is no material or political space for this option.
The imbalance between supply and demand is a challenge
In the vaccine industry, the new corona vaccine is a miracle. Less than a year passed from the start of development after the outbreak of the epidemic early last year to the end of the year. You know, it took 9 years for the measles virus to be successfully isolated in 1954 until the vaccine was approved; the polio vaccine experienced a long wait of 20 years from its first trials to its first approval in the United States in 1955; after the SARS outbreak in 2003 It takes approximately 20 months from the publication of the viral genome to the development of a vaccine that can be used in human trials.
The new corona vaccine can be vaccinated in just one year, once it injects a strong boost into the global war epidemic. However, since many countries launched vaccination plans, there have been constant unrest: from the deaths of more than 20 elderly people in Norway to the vaccination battle between Britain and Europe, it means that having a vaccine is not everything. Analysts said the road ahead is still full of thorns.
“From vaccine production to distribution, transportation and vaccination, there are challenges at every link, which will result in an imbalance between supply and demand,” said Xu Jianqing.
In the production process, due to production problems, it will not be able to deliver on time.
The Economic News Network of Buenos Aires, Argentina, previously reported that although large-scale vaccination has begun, the mass production of vaccines is facing the bottleneck of raw material shortages and insufficient production capacity. The vaccine shortage will continue for a time and multinational vaccination plans will be interrupted.
In the distribution link, how to distribute effectively and fairly will be a challenge.
According to data recently released by the WHO, 50 countries around the world have received a total of around 40 million doses of the new corona vaccine, most of which are high-income countries. The agency said that as countries in other regions rush to buy vaccines, vaccine prices are rising and Africa is in danger of being left behind. “Developing countries, especially underdeveloped countries, face financial difficulties in purchasing vaccines,” said Xu Jianqing.
Not only is there a gap in distribution globally, it is inevitable that there will be an unfair distribution within rich countries. According to the Associated Press, although the United States has identified priority groups for vaccination, board members and major hospital donors in various locations have been exposed to the new crown vaccine early. Furthermore, there is a racial divide in vaccination. The US media published a report on January 30 that summarized data from 17 states and the two cities of Philadelphia and Chicago, showing that the proportion of minorities such as African Americans and Hispanics vaccinated against the new crown is much lower than that of whites.
Xu Jianqing suggested that the fair and effective distribution of vaccines should follow the four principles of “priority”, that is, high-risk groups (such as the elderly), high-risk groups (such as medical personnel), high-level groups of fluids (most likely to spread the virus) and high endemic areas Vaccination and then promote it among the general population in an orderly manner. On this basis, take full advantage of the coordinating role of WHO and other international organizations.
On the transport link, the ultra-low temperature storage environment poses a challenge for the transportation of the Pfizer vaccine (need minus 70 degrees Celsius) and the Modena vaccine (need minus 20 degrees Celsius); the long and complicated transportation process is also a test. Take for example the supply of vaccines from Modena to the European Union, which is produced in Switzerland, packed in Spain, and then shipped to EU countries from a logistics center in Belgium.
In the vaccination process, the traditional vaccination capacity is insufficient to meet the global demand. Traditional vaccination is aimed primarily at the birth population and is relatively easy to manage. However, the new corona vaccine must be fully vaccinated and the traditional vaccination capacity is not enough to carry it.
“The imbalance between supply and demand is difficult to solve in the short term, and is expected to last between six months and a year,” said Xu Jianqing.
Cha Daojiong also believes that before discussing the supply and distribution of vaccines, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine must first be ensured. And safety and efficacy are not entirely related to advanced technology, but must be symptomatic. The mutation of the new coronavirus is a challenge for the effectiveness of the vaccine. The primary task of international organizations should be to ensure the universal applicability of vaccines and to assist countries that do not have the capacity to develop and produce vaccines, or to test the safety and efficacy of vaccines, to conduct vaccine inspections to determine if they are suitable for the country, to achieve symptomaticity, only in this way can we better face the challenges of vaccine adaptability.
It is worth mentioning that the global supply of vaccines is insufficient, the new corona vaccine developed by China has become the main solution for many countries due to its mature technology and low storage and transportation costs. Although some Western media continue to “dump dirty water” and “label” Chinese vaccines out of bias, they cannot prevent Chinese vaccines from gaining wide acceptance in the international arena. More and more countries are choosing to actively buy and cast a “vote of confidence” for the safety and efficacy of China’s vaccines with practical actions.
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