In science, as in life, it is essential to cooperate to overcome great challenges. In the history of science, there are many achievements and discoveries, almost always from work carried out successively and tirelessly by different authors, as a team. Another fundamental aspect of science is the constant exchange of new knowledge and information, through publications, open data, conferences and scientific meetings. As a rule, science evolves through the exchange and discussion of results to answer initial problems or to improve existing answers.
Since 2020, the world has been experiencing a pandemic of large proportions and long duration, just as it happened at the beginning of the 20th century. But unlike the ‘Spanish flu’ (1918-19), the emergence of the new coronavirus took place in a globalized world, with nations almost totally and simultaneously connected by the internet and other forms of communication.
This strong and agile connection allowed the rapid exchange of knowledge, information and cooperation between scientists around the world, as well as the dissemination of the results of their research in real time. The massive influx of preliminary data on the causes and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic had negative effects as well, but certainly the benefits were greater.
Faced with this great challenge for humanity, scientists and research institutions came together, began to integrate knowledge, openly disclose results in search of solutions to understand the behavior of a virus that was different from others already known. The results came quickly, with vaccines developed and distributed in record time, as a result of the science that was already being developed and the cooperation between governments, universities, institutes, laboratories, industries and society.
Based on technologies being developed for other purposes, vaccines from the University of Oxford and BionTech, for example, proposed new formulas, which were tested and approved. Other solutions followed more traditional paths, such as Coronavac, produced by the Butantan Institute in partnership with Sinovac, which was equally important to face the chaotic scenario that has settled in all nations.
Great Britain, Germany, USA, China, India and Russia started to play an important role in the development of vaccines, of different technologies, as well as in the supply of pharmaceutical ingredients. In Brazil, in addition to phase 3 studies of some of the vaccines, there is also research into new immunizations, developed entirely in our country. During this process, there was a lot of cooperation and some hope that the collective effort would guide a planetary grand coalition in the fight against the pandemic. However, despite established networks of collaboration, the central powers, which today are protagonists of the conflict in Ukraine, failed to reach an effective and fair agreement for the rapid distribution and access to vaccines by all nations of the world.
The initial cooperation between science and society gave way to competition between governments and companies, favoring the richest countries and the most powerful pharmaceutical companies. Conflicts over power, money and intellectual property limited cooperation and deepened inequalities and mistrust.
A harbinger of what was to come, or simply a return to the previous stage of smoldering warfare and fierce competition? In any case, science and humanity, which faced the virus and envisioned a possible global order of greater cooperation, lost with the return to a polarized, warmongering and destructive geopolitical and economic order. The end of cooperation and the return to a state of war between empires and markets is a crime against humanity, in addition to the direct victims of the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine are still fighting a war in the midst of the pandemic. The two countries are equally suffering from the spread of the omicron variant, with astronomical numbers of daily cases (approximately 180,000 daily in Russia and 35,000 in Ukraine, which has a population three times smaller). Even though Russia has produced its own vaccine, Sputnik, only half of the population has taken at least the first dose of vaccine (in Brazil we are already at more than 80%).
In Ukraine the situation is even more serious. Although the country wants to be part of the European community, it is far from an acceptable standard of vaccination, with only 35% of the population having at least the first dose, according to information from Our World in Data (data visualization and monitoring platform developed by Oxford University). With the war, the process of immunization of Ukrainians is even more compromised, since vaccination will be suspended in almost all cities in the face of continued attacks and the population going to air-raid shelters.
The conflict will intensify the challenges of the pandemic from a regional and even global point of view, in view of the projections of forced displacement of about 5 million people during war, producing a wave of refugees, which will add complexity and make it impossible to secure predictions about the future. control of the pandemic, as the variants continue in circulation around the world.
It is already certain that the world population will need a new generation of vaccines soon and, for that, it will be necessary to strengthen international scientific cooperation and investment in different fronts of action to reduce inequality in distribution and access. Another scientific evidence is the need to reduce the devastation of the environment to prevent the dramatic climate changes that are underway and that increase the chances of new pandemics.
Climate and environmental issues are closely connected to health, food security and hunger relief. The conflict will exacerbate these trends and has already reached international consequences, with negative impacts on global trade, with an increase in the price of products and a shortage of food and energy (gas and fuels) – which will certainly penalize poor countries and populations in situations of vulnerability.
The war in Ukraine and the new global war polarization will cause setbacks and may nullify the legacy, even if partial, of global cooperation in scientific advances, new technologies and the development of public goods for health. If it was possible to imagine a post-pandemic reconstruction cycle with advances in various agendas, the war and all its humanitarian, economic and political consequences are putting this minimally promising post-covid future at great risk.
