Unfair responses to global health Emphasizing the need for more self-sufficiency in developing countries – Global issues
UNITED NATIONAL, 8 September (IPS) – With outbreaks of monkeypox in endemic countries prompting a scramble for a vaccine, global health campaigners are once again calling for equity to be prioritized. in international reactions.
Equity is a primary concern during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic health emergency response. The World Health Organization (WHO) has helped lead some ability to judge in an effort to reduce disparities between countries, especially COVAXvaccine pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.
However, despite these efforts, data from Our World in Data shows that only one in seven people is fully immunized in low-income countries. In contrast, nearly three in four people have been fully vaccinated in a year in high-income countries.
Fatima Hassan, a human rights lawyer and founder of the South Africa-based civil society group the Health Justice Initiative, sees the current disparities in access to monkeypox vaccines as The latest example shows that the Global South, and Africa in particular, is being marginalized in the global health space.
“We’re still in Africa without any supply of monkeypox vaccine, although as a continent we’ve been dealing with this disease for many years. So, to a degree, now Now that it’s become a global problem in the North, a vaccine has been found for them, but not for us.”
Monkeypox can be prevented with the smallpox vaccine, which is 85% effective against the virus. Since the disease was eradicated in 1980, WHO has earmarked 31 million doses for a rapid response in case of recurrent smallpox. The organization is currently evaluating effectiveness of this stockpile and whether it could be deployed against monkeypox.
However, these doses were never distributed in Africa, where monkeypox has been endemic since The 1970s. The continent is also facing a much higher death rate. When WHO declared a global health emergency, the only deaths recorded were from West and Central Africa, where 4.7% of those infected died.
In the case of COVID-19, many see international rules that allow pharmaceutical companies to protect their intellectual property (IP) rights as simply reinforcing existing disparities between countries.
Several wealthy countries have contracted with pharmaceutical companies to help fund private-sector research and development in return for priority access to vaccine supplies. Finally, when companies develop successful vaccines, the technology they use has been restricted from being shared with the global community. Countries lacking both the technology and resources to purchase resources on the open market had to rely on vaccine funding from wealthy countries several months later.
More than 100 organizations and networks have joined a coalition known as People’s Vaccine calls for the suspension of intellectual property rules and mandatory aggregation of data and technology related to COVID-19. Supporters of the coalition’s call include current leaders of the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, and Former Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
For Hassan, intellectual property regulations are particularly problematic due to the participation of Africans in the testing phases of Moderna and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines.
“We’ve done all of those tests; we’ve contributed to the creation of scientific knowledge and knowledge that allows emergency use. But we can’t guarantee the source. provide or preferential access or access.So the deeper inequity in this whole setting is also that Global South has been asked to participate in research and testing, but has not. regulated way to secure real benefit-sharing arrangements.”
For countries around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of increasing self-sufficiency in responding to global health emergencies.
“I think that’s the lesson of COVID. For the Global South, it’s like, oh, okay, we really need to figure this out on our own,” Hassan said.
Several initiatives have been created to accomplish this goal, including a new mRNA vaccine technology center in South Africa.
The center was launched by WHO and COVAX in Afrigen, Cape Town, on June 21, 2022. It aims to strengthen low- and middle-income countries’ production capacity of COVID mRNA vaccines by digging Create scientists to develop mRNA vaccines and synthesize all the knowledge gained by partners. The site in Afrigen will be operated by a consortium that includes Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
When the center was launched, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa praised the initiative and its implications for Africa’s role globally.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the entire vaccine gap between developed and developing economies, and how that gap can seriously undermine global health security. This landmark landmark is a major step forward in international efforts to build capacity in vaccine development and production that will put Africa on a path to self-determination.”
African scientists are heading to the center of technology transfer. It has has been produced First batches of mRNA vaccines with technology will be transferred to 15 countries.
Reflecting on Africa’s response to COVID-19, Public Health Professor Flavia Senkubuge told IPS she is proud of how well the continent is dealing with the issue, especially given the many people anticipating COVID -19 will literally “wipe out” the area.
WHO has quote Africa has been “one of the least affected regions in the world” during the pandemic. Total deaths from the continent, 256 555, accounting for 3 percent out of a total of 6.49 million in the world. In contrast, deaths from the Americas and Europe accounted for 46% and 29%, respectively.
Senkubuge told IPS that projections that Africa will be completely overwhelmed ignore the expertise Africa has gained in combating public health crises, particularly HIV. and AIDS.
“If you look at South Africa, for people like me who trained and practiced as doctors during the HIV and AIDS era, we are used to large numbers of very serious patients. , in South Africa, you have to remember that we’re a country with four times the disease burden, so that means we have a huge influx of patients coming into our healthcare facilities. We are used to a different way of working, having an optimal classification system and working in an environment of lack of manpower and high pressure. . “
The underappreciation also affects the work of African scientists. Both Hassan and Senkubuge told IPS that African work is often neglected and overlooked in the global environment.
However, the pandemic has also highlighted their contributions to global health, Senkubuge said. She points to South Africa’s rapid detection and response to the emergence of the Omicron variant. She believes this has led to a change in the way African scientists are looking at their work on a global scale.
“As Africans, I think we’ve changed the paradigm to say we’re here, we’re not going anywhere. We’re not going to try to convince anyone of work excellence. our own, we will just do our job, continue to share it with our community, publish in top journals and be part of a global discourse on our own terms I. working here in Africa is amazing and makes a significant contribution to global health.”
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