By Paul Ejime
The political economy of international relations, particularly the deep-rooted unequal North-South partnerships were x-rayed at a Seminar on the COVID-19 Vaccines: Ensuring Fair and Equitable Distribution held in Abuja on Wednesday, 25 August.
The event jointly organised by the DiplomatsExtra Magazine and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) brought together senior journalists and media executives as part of efforts to intensify public advocacy, mobilisation and sensitization for the containment of the Covid-19 pandemic and its devastation.
By December, it would be two years that the virus hit the world, unleashing in its wake the deaths of more than 4 million people from the more than 213 million cases reported in 200 countries and territories worldwide.
The socio-economic devastation has redefined the world, from politics to the economy, interpersonal relations, the way we work, play, worship, travel and more.
Unfortunately, there has been no proven cure or silver-bullet treatment.
Even though scientists have rallied to produce a range of vaccines within one year of the outbreak (a breakthrough in medicine), the world governments would seem to have learnt very little, if anything at all, from their own preachments on fairness, equity and justice.
Most of the available vaccines are produced in the advanced countries, many of which have decided to serve their citizens first, even when Covid-19 has demonstrated its capability to dismantle all human barriers in its spread and choice of victims. Presidents, government ministers, the high and mighty, the rich and poor in advanced and low-income countries alike, have died or contracted the virus.
Yet, the inequalities that define the world order have given rise to discriminatory practices such as “vaccine nationalism,” such that a country like Canada with about 40 million people has ordered about 200 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, even when two doses are required per person.
Under such a skewed system, the tough challenge now is how to make the insufficient vaccines go round to protect the world’s estimated 7 billion population.
According to Our World in Data, some 32.7% of the world’s population had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, with only 24.6% fully vaccinated by 24th August 2021.
It noted that 5 billion doses of different vaccines had been administered globally, at the rate of 33.56 million daily.
But from this amount, only 1.4% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.
Africa, whose estimated 1.3 billion people account for about 16% of the world’s population has reported 109,404 deaths from 7.7 million cases of the virus.
But caseloads are rising amid indications of a third wave on the continent, with just 52 million of Africans inoculated, representing 1.6% of the Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide.
I argued in my presentation on Covid-19 Vaccines, New norms and International Politics, that Africa and low and middle-income countries must look inwards for solutions to their problems. While they can acquire the vaccines through multilateral and bilateral cooperations, including with the WHO and the Covax Coalition partnerships, these countries must also intensify efforts for local production of the vaccines.
The pandemic is also a wake-up call for these countries to invest more resources in their weak and under-resourced health systems.
Since vaccines are not foolproof against the virus, there is the need for strict observance of the generally agreed health protocols including wearing face masks, hand washing and sanitising, avoiding large crowds and physical distancing.
Also, the pandemic containment measures must be science-led, devoid of politics and unending unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
There were also other presentations on Tapping into Belt and Road (Strategy) on Covid-19 Vaccine Cooperation, and the need to Make WHO-approved Vaccines Accessible to all.
In its Communique, the seminar stressed the need for fair and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
It urged governments to partner with the media to intensify public advocacy and sensitisation on COVID-19 containment including through the production of publicity materials such as a technical handbook, posters, banners and billboards.
The campaign should be prioritised, targeting strategic places, including markets, garages, parks and sports stadiums, among others.