Developing countries need vaccines to protect their populations and to help prevent the emergence of new variants of Covid.
The current system is not effectively getting vaccines to the developing world.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/22/science/developing-country-covid-vaccines.html
Across the developing world, hundreds of millions of people are unable to get a vaccine to protect themselves from the ravages of Covid-19, and millions of them have already become infected and died.
Contrary to the protests of corporations that are selling vaccines, there are developing countries that are capable of making their own mRNA vaccines.
Depending on wealthy nations to donate billions of doses is not working, public health experts say. The solution, many now believe, is for the countries to do something that the big American mRNA vaccine makers say is not feasible: Manufacture the gold-standard mRNA shots themselves.
Despite mounting pressure, the chief executives of Moderna and Pfizer have declined to license their mRNA technology in developing countries, arguing it makes no sense to do so. They say that the process is too complex, that it would be too time- and labor- intensive to establish facilities that could do it, and that they cannot spare the staff because of the urgent need to maximize production at their own network of facilities.
“You cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA: Those people don’t exist,” the chief executive of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, told analysts.
But public health experts in both rich and poor countries argue that expanding production to the regions most in need is not only possible, it is essential for safeguarding the world against dangerous variants of the virus and ending the pandemic.
The developing countries that are most capable of producing mRNA vaccines are:
- India
- South Africa
- Brazil
- Argentina
- Indonesia
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But it is no longer merely developing countries of the southern hemisphere that are vulnerable to Covid.
The current Russian and Chinese vaccines might not be quite so effective against the omicron variant in terms of antibody response as the mRNA vaccines.
https://fortune.com/2021/12/17/jj-sputnik-sinopharm-covid-vaccines-ineffective-omicron-study/
COVID-19 shots made by China’s state-owned Sinopharm and Johnson & Johnson, as well as the Sputnik vaccine developed by Russia, were found to produce little or no antibodies against omicron in a study, as evidence of the new variant’s vaccine-evading abilities mounts.
Researchers at the University of Washington and Swiss drugmaker Humabs Biomed SA analyzed the efficacy of six vaccines against the highly-infectious and most-mutated Covid variant. Only three out of 13 people who has taken both doses of Sinopharm’s shot showed neutralizing antibodies against omicron. For J&J, this metric dropped to one out of 12 samples. None of the 11 people fully vaccinated with Sputnik generated such antibodies.
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But this is complicated.
For example, in the case of the Chinese vaccine, there may indeed be a lessened antibody response to the omicron variant.
This means that the Chinese vaccines do not protect so well against becoming infected by the omicron variant.
Nevertheless, the Sinopharm and Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines still protect against severe illness, hospitalisation, and death from the Omicron variant.
This is because the Chinese vaccines induce a strong T-cell response.
Human bodies have different layers of immunity.
Thus, when antibodies fail to prevent infection, T-cells, a type of white blood cell that attacks infected cells, can form another layer of defense.
Thus, vaccinated Chinese might become infected by omicron, but these cases of infection will become detached from the previous rates of hospitalization and death.
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Nevertheless, there could be new coronavirus variants in the future that would require a powerful antibody response, and not merely rely on T-cells.
In other words, Russia and China need mRNA technology to make vaccines.
This is in everybody’s self-interest.
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The idea here is to provide mRNA vaccine technology to Russia and China.
However, this is not only to protect their populations from future iterations of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The Russians and Chinese would then ramp up production of mRNA vaccines for the developing world — for free.
Distributing vast quantities of vaccines that require refrigeration would be a great testament to the infrastructure created by the Belt and Road initiative.
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But more than opening up a new front in the struggle to end a global pandemic, giving mRNA technology to China and Russia would one step in making all vaccine technology open source.
In exchange for the mRNA technology, the Russians and Chinese would have to make public their own secret advances in medical and pharmaceutical science and technology.
All technology related to stemming pandemics would be open-source technology.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90498448/how-open-source-medicine-could-prepare-us-for-the-next-pandemic
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For instance, it might be necessary to develop a system of digitized medical records that would be user friendly and free to the developing world.
Specifically, such a system might prove to be essential during a pandemic to compare data, and not just serve as a high-priced billing system.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/12/why-doctors-hate-their-computers
