LONDON – The United States and its allies have portrayed it as Russian-backed cyber-thieves trying to steal the honest and hard work of Western scientists and disrupt collaborative efforts to solve the global COVID-19 crisis.
Actually, experts say the alleged attacks on the coronavirus investigation are just one sample of the nationalist fight against vaccines that is already brewing among democratic governments, a mounting tension that is likely to get ugly once a trial of immunization is successful.
“There is going to be a real fight,” said Mukesh Kapila, a former adviser to the director-general of the World Health Organization. “I would be surprised if the intelligence services in the western world weren’t spying too; in fact, I would be disappointed.”
The headlines on Thursday were shocking and alarming. Hackers within Russia’s intelligence services are trying to steal research into the coronavirus vaccine from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, according to a joint statement from the three countries. All three have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in leading vaccine candidates.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab compared Russia’s “reckless behavior” to transatlantic allies, who “continued the hard work of finding a vaccine and protecting global health.”
The UK has done much of its part in altruistic efforts to fund and distribute any viable inoculation jab. Coordinated by the WHO, several countries have already accumulated billions of dollars to develop coronavirus vaccines and distribute them “fairly and equitably” worldwide.
But many experts remain deeply skeptical. Governments around the world have yet to agree on what really means fair and just, and how it will work in practice. Many outside observers suspect that, when it comes to the crisis, any government whose scientists discover that the winning formula is unlikely to provide other significant resources if it means that its own people are getting less.
“The plans are still plans, and only 10 percent of the projected money has been promised,” David Salisbury, a former British immunization director, said of the WHO fundraising initiative.
Moscow has not subscribed to the WHO collaboration plan, but neither has Washington. The United States has openly opposed these vaccine-sharing efforts, telling the WHO assembly in May that the language used “would send the wrong message to innovators” in terms of the intellectual property of these drugs.
That fueled fears that a new “vaccine nationalism” was brewing, which only increased after the United States absorbed 90 percent of the production of remdesivir in July, a COVID-19 antiviral manufactured by the American pharmaceutical giant. Gilead.
There is a precedent here. During the 2009 swine flu pandemic, rich countries placed advanced orders for vaccines, displacing poorer countries that had to wait longer to gain access.
“I am afraid it is the job of each country to take care of its own population first. That is the fundamental political contract between a government and its people,” said Kapila, whose three-decade career includes senior positions in the British government and a large number from UN agencies. “It will be a competitive process. And I am afraid the weakest and poorest countries will be last in line.”
The head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center said Russia’s alleged hack was “deplorable” but was not surprised. “We have been used to malicious cyber activity for a few years,” he told NBC News, adding that the fact that vaccination efforts were focused simply underscored “the increased importance of healthcare and health assets at this time of the history”.
As with all of those allegations in recent years, Russia denied that it was responsible for hacking into the Western Coronavirus investigation.
Moscow said it not only has its own vaccine trials in progress, but has already agreed to an agreement with the United Kingdom to make the vaccine that it was accused of trying to steal.
“There is nothing that needs to be stolen,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, told Reuters. “Everything will be given to Russia.”
Even if Russia was behind the attack, some experts said it was unclear what Moscow hoped to win.
“I don’t see much point in that,” said Salisbury, who is now an associate member of London’s Chatham House think tank. “Everyone is posting so much detail so fast that there’s little to gain by hacking.”
In any case, there are many in the United States and elsewhere who are not surprised or disturbed by the piracy charges.
“I have no problem with * any * country trying to save the lives of its population by gaining access to vaccine research to reach a solution to this crisis sooner,” Dmitri Alperovitch, California co-founder of the company-based cybersecurity tweeted. CrowdStrike. “I certainly hope and hope that the intelligence of the United States is doing the same right now.”
Michele Neubert contributed
