The world faces a problem of vaccine shortage. Understandably, politicians are concerned about what their voters would think about their inability to procure the number of doses required to inoculate the population. If they have a Covid-19 vaccine production facility within their borders, this concern manifests as a ban on exports. In retaliation, some countries, which produce essential inputs for vaccine manufacture, restrict the export of adjuvants, vials and so on. This curtails even the ongoing supply of vaccines. As the scramble to corner a share of an inadequate supply of vaccines gets more intense, the focus on increasing the supply of vaccines goes out of the window.
Pfizer has begun human trials for a pill that could treat Covid. Even before that, the possibility of containing the disease had opened up through mass vaccination. If enough number of people are vaccinated, and become resistant to infection, the chain of transmission would break. That threshold is estimated to be anywhere between 60% and 70% of the population. If the efficacy of a vaccine is 80%, for 70% of the population to develop immunity of some sort, 87.5% of the population must be vaccinated. If 60% of the population have to develop immunity, 75% of the population must be vaccinated.
If 75% of the global population of 7.8 billion is to be vaccinated twice over — most vaccines require two doses — the total number of vaccine doses required would be 11.7 billion. The challenge is not just to produce the required volumes. The sooner these are produced and distributed, the better the world’s ability to stop virus mutations that produce more infectious strains that call for newer vaccines. This means stepping up vaccine production in as small a window of time as possible, while also producing the inputs that go into the vaccine along with virus protein, inactivated virus or messenger RNA used to make the vaccine. Simultaneously, a campaign to get people to accept vaccination must roll out, along with the logistics of vaccine distribution.
Increasing global vaccine supplies calls for global coordination. Vaccine know-how must be made available without any intellectual property restrictions, so that anyone capable of producing the vaccine can get to work anywhere in the world. Production of adjuvants and other inputs that go into a vaccine must go up, as should storage facilities for vaccines. India and South Africa have jointly called upon the WTO to waive four types of intellectual property rights on Covid-related treatments, vaccines and kit. This is superior to individual countries issuing compulsory licences, because the resultant production could get tangled in export restrictions.
The US government’s Operation Warp Speed funded vaccine development in several cases. The US’s large advance orders and payments made funds available to companies like Pfizer to proceed with their vaccine production. Oxford University and AstraZeneca have decided to not make profits from their vaccine during the pandemic, which is why Serum Institute of India’s Covishield is so inexpensive. Even then, when the government brings the price down to Rs 150 per dose for its bulk purchases, it does not leave any money on the table for Serum Institute, sadly limiting their incentive to step up production.
China is making its vaccines available as a global public good, minus any IPR royalties. Bharat Biotech developed Covaxin along with the Indian Council of Medical Research. Bharat Biotech manufactures the rotavirus vaccine and exports it widely and is a well-regarded maker of vaccines. It stands to enhance its global presence and prestige through Covaxin. The government should buy out Bharat Biotech’s IPR and make its know-how available for free to any manufacturer anywhere in the world to produce that vaccine. India should urge other governments, notably the US, to follow suit, with regard to the vaccines and treatments developed by American companies. This way, companies would reap the reward for their research and the world would have access to inexpensive vaccines. Such a move would make it easier for governments to waive IPR on Covid-related medical supplies.
State funding of the cost of acquiring Covid vaccine IPR, running into tens of billion dollars, would be richly rewarded in the form of avoiding lockdowns that cost lives and trillions of dollars of lost output, jobs and taxes. India produced about half the world’s vaccines, by volume, even before Covid. Now the world has woken up to India’s potential. India must step up production of the entire range of vaccine ingredients and emerge as a true global titan in vaccine development. India has the largest pool of manpower that can be trained in assorted science, technology, engineering and math subjects.
The trained talent’s entrepreneurial potential must be tapped to come out with new treatments, better processes and innovations in health data management. The startup ecosystem can do wonders for healthcare. The Employees’ Provident Fund and the National Pension Scheme must allocate a slice of their funds to venture capital, ideally, managed by those with a successful track record.
Just as India stepped up to produce and export personal protective equipment and sanitiser, it now has the chance to play the world’s saviour on the Covid vaccine front. By exporting large quantities of vaccines, New Delhi has set the ball rolling. The momentum must be kept up.
