(Asian News Hub) – Epidemiologists from around the world fear the world has less than a year before the coronavirus mutates to a point where a majority of first-generation vaccines are rendered ineffective and new or modified vaccines are required.
77 epidemiologists from 28 countries shared their concerns in a survey carried out by The People’s Vaccine Alliance.
The Alliance is a coalition of over 50 organizations including the African Alliance, Oxfam and UNAIDS that campaigns for equal global access to COVID vaccines. Of those surveyed, almost a third gave a time-frame of nine months or less. Fewer than one in eight said they believed that mutations would never render the current vaccines ineffective.
The overwhelming majority argued that persistent low vaccine coverage in many countries would make it more likely for vaccine-resistant mutations to appear.
Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed —who included epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists from institutions including Johns Hopkins, Yale, Imperial College, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Cambridge University, the University of Edinburgh and The University of Cape Town— said that open sharing of technology and intellectual property could increase global vaccine coverage.
The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling for the lifting of pharmaceutical monopolies and the sharing of technology to urgently boost vaccine supply.
Most of the vaccines are being produced and used by developed nations, leaving poorer countries short of supplies.
UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders and The World Health Organization are among the many global organizations urging wealthier nations to donate surplus vaccines to its COVAX initiative. COVAX aims to distribute vaccine fairly among poorer nations that are quickly being left behind.
The WHO said in January that the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” due to the unfair vaccine rollouts.
Earlier this month, wealthy countries blocked a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines. The People’s Vaccine Alliance urges them to reconsider when talks resume at the World Trade Organisation in April.
The Alliance is also calling for all pharmaceutical corporations working on COVID-19 vaccines to openly share their technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, in order to speed up and ramp up the production and rollout of vaccines to all countries.
Story compiled with assistance from Oxfam.org and wire reports.
