For experts, new variant is announced disaster

For activists and scientists who have spent the past year advocating fairer distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, the news of a potentially more dangerous new variant of the coronavirus was a disaster waiting to happen.

The variant is called omicron and was first detected in South Africa, where less than 25% of the population is fully vaccinated. The variant is the first since the detection of delta, about a year ago, to earn the WHO (World Health Organization) label of “concern variant”, its highest category.

The designation means the variant has mutations that could make it more contagious or more virulent, or make vaccines and other preventive measures less effective — although none of these effects have yet been officially confirmed. Several countries in Europe have already detected cases.

“What science tells us from the start is that if you have large populations that are unprotected from this virus, it will mutate,” says David McNair, executive director of global policy at the NGO ONE, which fights poverty in Africa. “It is a tragedy that today we are seeing this happen.”

“Storing vaccines, not funding a joint global response — it all led to this situation. And the sad thing is that EU (European Union) countries, North America, Canada and others had the power to change that a year ago and chose not to do it,” he adds.

EU claims global leadership

While nearly 70% of adults in the European Union are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the majority of health workers in African countries are not.

Despite this discrepancy, European Commission Spokesperson Stefan De Keersmaeker insists the EU is “at the forefront in ensuring global solidarity with the rest of the world”.

It highlights the EU’s joint pledge with the US to vaccinate 70% of the world by September 2022, with the bloc as a major contributor to Covax, the global initiative aimed at boosting vaccine production and supply to the poorest nations .

“And, of course, there is also the fact that we are the main exporters of vaccines to the rest of the world,” he says. “We are, so to speak, the world’s pharmacy on this account.”

Only a third of the doses delivered

But when it comes to meeting short-term commitments, the EU’s promises seem to fall short of expectations.

The bloc and its members have pledged to donate 300 million doses of vaccine to low- and middle-income countries by the end of 2021 — through Covax and bilateral donations. But so far, less than a third has been delivered.

The figures obtained by DW show that, as of November 26, around 95 million donated doses had arrived in the beneficiary countries.

Disputes with pharmaceutical companies

Diplomatic sources told DW that the bloc’s member states are laying some of the blame for the slow delivery on drugmakers.

“Most pharmaceutical companies don’t want to take care of logistics on their own,” says an EU diplomat on condition of anonymity.

“They think it’s up to the member state that bought the doses to send them to the country they want to donate to. The problem is that these are complicated vaccines, with complicated delivery and storage conditions.”

In a letter to the European Commission obtained by the Reuters news agency, German Health Secretary Thomas Steffen also blames vaccine manufacturers.

“We are facing ongoing bureaucratic, logistical and legal problems,” says the letter, dated 18 October.

“Manufacturers appear to take advantage of member states’ contractual obligation to obtain their prior written consent to prevent transfers of vaccines they deem potentially harmful to their commercial interests.”

De Keersmaecker, a spokesman for the European Commission, did not confirm receipt of the letter, but told DW that discussions with pharmaceutical companies are ongoing. “We continue to monitor the situation of deliveries under our contracts,” he stated.

Pharmacists say they are helping

Vaccine makers deny any role in delaying donations. In a statement sent to DW, Pfizer says: “From day one of our vaccine development program, Pfizer and BioNTech have been committed to fair and equitable access to our Covid-19 vaccine.”

Johnson & Johnson told DW that it “strongly believes that inequitable access to Covid-19 vaccines will only prolong the pandemic” and urges governments with vaccines available to “immediately increase dose sharing”.

The company said it “will provide some logistical and supply chain support to ensure that donated vaccines can be delivered to recipient countries as quickly as possible.”

AstraZeneca claims on its website that most of the doses it manufactured went to low- and middle-income countries, and Moderna recently announced a new agreement with the EU to deliver more doses of its vaccine to poor nations.

The EU is unlikely to reach its 2021 target, even as vaccine deliveries to the poorest nations have increased since the summer.

distribution challenge

Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of Covax’s office at Aliaça Gavi says that while there is still an extreme discrepancy in vaccine sharing, a new period “where supply is becoming more readily available to those countries that have been left behind” is beginning.

But that, according to her, represents “a new set of challenges”.

Increasing pledges, at the same time, may mean that poorer countries with the weakest health infrastructure may have to refuse donations, especially when vaccines are approaching their expiration dates or require complex methods of storage and distribution.

Nguyen says efforts have been made to increase the “absorptive capacity” of these countries to receive and distribute large amounts of doses.

Still, emergency flight bans imposed amid fears over the new variant could add new complications to vaccine deliveries.

Less third dose, more sharing

But for Dimitri Eynikel, EU adviser at Médecins Sans Frontières, the mass implementation of booster doses, under way in Europe, could prove problematic from both an epidemiological and an equality point of view.

Even before news of the new variant reached Europe, he said, countries were showing “reluctance to donate.”

“With the new waves coming in now, with the interest in booster shots — they’re delaying donations. That’s not, for us, the right approach. The idea shouldn’t be to give more and more shots to the same people.” comments.

David McNair, from the NGO ONE, insists on the need to expand the global response to the pandemic. “The risk is that countries do what they have been doing from the beginning and say: we need to close the borders and vaccinate our own citizens again. This will not solve the problem,” he says.

“EU member countries, in particular, need to share their vaccine surpluses. If we don’t, then we’ll be in the same situation within a few months.”