‘Nations didn’t comply with WHO framework for equitable healthcare access’

Hyderabad: In response to the Covid pandemic, while the scientific achievements have been absolutely outstanding such as vaccines in less than a year and a lot of progress on diagnostics, self-test kits and antivirals, technology, and the genomic surveillance, which has allowed to track the evolution of the virus, but global coordination and harmony was […]

Hyderabad: In response to the Covid pandemic, while the scientific achievements have been absolutely outstanding such as vaccines in less than a year and a lot of progress on diagnostics, self-test kits and antivirals, technology, and the genomic surveillance, which has allowed to track the evolution of the virus, but global coordination and harmony was lacking, said, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist, WHO.

Speaking at a panel session on the first day of BioAsia titled ‘Two years into the pandemic – Challenges, successes and what next?’, she said, even though WHO put out a framework for equitable healthcare access and share them equitably, countries did not play by that and each country was trying to look after itself which has resulted in over 70 per cent of people in high income countries vaccinate against less than 10 per cent of people in African countries.

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Countries are now discussing a treaty for a pandemic agreement for binding principles or agreements on how countries must act. The worst affected were poor, the marginalised or those who had poor safety net. The science was amazing, but the solidarity was lacking.

There are many countries that are not able to mount the vaccination programmes which India has successfully been able to do. There is a lot of support needed on the ground in terms of technical support, workforce, funding, logistic support etc.

She informed, “WHO is working on scenarios where we might need variant proof and broadly acting vaccines and inhaled vaccines that the likes of Bharat Biotech are working on. For the future we need distributed manufacturing network for which we have the mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa. We are now initiating various spokes. Many companies are working on second generation mRNA technology. No region must be dependent on other countries for imports of vaccines or other health products.”

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