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On February 4, US President Joe Biden delivered a speech to situate his country’s place in the world. America is back and will engage with the world to meet challenges of today and tomorrow, he said. It’s time for him to redeem his pledge in the fight against Covid-19. The US has set an impressive pace in vaccinating its people over the last three months. It’s fully vaccinated around 35% of its adult population and about 52% have received at least one dose. Its supply pipeline is adequate to vaccinate every willing adult in a month.
In this backdrop, two aspects are jarring. Last week, more than 5.2 million cases were reported globally, the most in a single week so far. Concurrently, the US is holding on to a stockpile of vaccines that it no longer needs. AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine hasn’t even been cleared by the US regulator. Yet, the country has a reserve of reportedly 20 million doses, with more in the pipeline. Those vaccines need to be used immediately in countries facing a surge. It’s not right to hoard them when just a handful of countries have consumed most of the 800 odd million doses used so far.
Second, the US has used a wartime measure, Defence Production Act, to disrupt the vaccine supply chain by preventing exports of crucial ingredients. India’s Serum Institute’s collaboration with Novavax is a victim of it. The US doesn’t face a crisis today. The DPA needs to be withdrawn. Finally, the effort at WTO by India and South Africa, among others, to dilute the stringency of intellectual property rules for the Covid-19 fight needs consideration. After all, compulsory licensing in an emergency is a WTO-compliant provision. America’s strategic interests can’t be divorced from its pandemic response globally and humanely.
Courtesy - TOI
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