How vaccine nationalism is leading to vaccine apartheid

They say that everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The global political climate of the last six years, mixed with an aggressive pandemic, has brewed a perfect storm that has led to some countries sailing through, some hanging on to wreckage for dear life, while others are drowning. Many countries have or had populist governments when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Brazil, the United States, Australia, India, Japan, the United Kingdom and of course, Pakistan all had parties and rulers in power that peddle nationalism and “country first” policies and agenda.

While we are all in this together, we also really are not at the same time. I personally, have never before felt so sharply that I in fact live in a “developing” country as my relative privilege has shrouded me from some of the harsh realities of living in a “poor” country. As friends and family have been getting vaccinated abroad, the stark difference in Pakistan and in the Global South has become further pronounced. I wonder though, how much of the world’s almost collective push towards nationalism has led us to vaccine nationalism that is leading to vaccine apartheid, globally.

As (bad) luck would have it, more powerful countries having nationalistic governments has led to another kind of nationalism — vaccine nationalism. While developing countries like Pakistan are not stockpiling vaccines, simply because of lack of resources, richer countries and even our neighbour, India, are in a position to stockpile vaccines that outweigh their country’s needs by manifolds.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, “At this critical moment, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community.” Yet, there is robust evidence that some European countries, the US and the UK have surplus vaccines that can vaccinate one citizen up to three, seven and five times, respectively. However, with the UN’s insistence, many countries are pledging to share their surplus with the developing world.

Is this sudden political goodwill or something a bit more sinister?

In my humble opinion, it is a bit of both. The US is a pretty fascinating case study to monitor this change as its political leadership has moved from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. US President Joe Biden is expected to pledge $4 billion to the COVAX programme and immediately rolled out a Covid-19 vaccination plan for America. But unlike his predecessor, while he is also putting “America first”, he is also looking to take a step as a global leader against the virus.

That being said, this is not just good vaccine diplomacy but a matter of common sense that until the whole world is vaccinated, the coronavirus is not going anywhere anytime soon!

Experts think the UK or the “Kent” strain may be up to 70% more transmissible or infectious. The latest research by Public Health England puts it between 30% and 50%. While the South African variant has more potentially important changes in the spike protein, making current vaccines possibly less effective against it.

While the UK strain has caused worldwide mayhem in its speed of transmission, the South African variant can spell disaster in the very near future. While experts say that hopefully the South African variant cannot make the current vaccines wholly defunct, it may threaten to undermine vaccine efforts.

Yet still, South Africa was given no concessions by the global community and leadership, when there should have been a vested interest to expedite vaccinations there. Counter-intuitively, Europe levied charges on South Africa to buy doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine at a price 2.5 times higher than most European countries.

The rationale?

As South Africa did not invest as much as many European countries towards research of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, they had to pay a higher price. One has to ask: why did South Africa not pay as much as these European countries?

Plagued by late post-colonialism and apartheid before the Covid pandemic, South Africa incurred the slavery and forced labour model which no doubt cost the nation unthinkable and unmeasurable loss socio-economically and politically. South Africa simply does not have as much capital to invest in the vaccine as Europe does because of its colonial history. Apartheid has taken on a new insidious form from the developed world on the backs of the “developing” world and must be held accountable.

New research by economist Utsa Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from the Sub-continent, tallying up the data on tax and trade during the period 1765 to 1938.

While the nationalism that has descended on our global political arena has added to vaccine nationalism, I have to argue that it is not just the political climate of now that has brewed this storm but centuries of oppression and exploitation of the Global South and developing world that is systemically marooning much of the world during the pandemic.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2021.

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