A global compact to counter vaccine nationalism
Authors: Prabhat Jha, Dean T Jamison, David A Watkins, John Bell
Journal: The Lancet (2021)

Vaccine nationalism threatens to turn the triumph of science to give the world vaccines against COVID-19 into tragedy. The success of several initiatives, many funded by taxpayers, to rapidly develop and test several safe and effective vaccines has been nothing short of spectacular. The social promise of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines was to reduce the underlying inequalities by race, ethnicity, and geography that COVID-19 has both made visible and amplified.1Sachs JD Horton R Bagenal J Ben Amor Y Karadag Caman O Lafortune G The Lancet COVID-19 Commission.Lancet. 2020; 396: 454-455Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (41) Google Scholar Yet, most of the billion vaccine doses administered have been in high-income countries (HICs), with most low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) left behind (appendix). WHO and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance have created COVAX to finance SARS-Cov-2 vaccines for LMICs, yet supply of vaccines is still short and coming from only a few companies. India's mostly uncontrolled second viral wave threatens exports of vaccines promised to many countries. The US Government suspending its objections to COVID-19 vaccine patents could help. However, the priority is to produce sufficient quantities on an urgent basis to provide global coverage. Aspirations to return to some sense of normality might well remain wishful thinking until most adults globally are vaccinated. How do we do that? We propose an integrated three-pillar global vaccine compact to expand vaccine supply and counter vaccine nationalism. Global vaccine production capacity in non-pandemic times is too small and too concentrated in a handful of pharmaceutical companies.2Hill AB Kilgore C McGlynn M Jones CH Improving global vaccine accessibility.Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2016; 42: 67-73Crossref PubMed Scopus (27) Google Scholar The first pillar of our proposed compact would be for countries to adopt the idea of a fully immunised adult, and launch national adult vaccination programmes. Using the US Disease Control Priorities Cost Model,3Jamison DT Alwan A Mock CN et al.Universal health coverage and intersectoral action for health: key messages from Disease Control Priorities, 3rd edition.Lancet. 2018; 391: 1108-1120Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (102) Google Scholar we estimate that the total cost of routine annual influenza vaccination, 5-yearly pneumococcal vaccines, HPV vaccines for adolescent girls, and tetanus for expectant mothers (including HICs) could be US$34 billion annually. National governments would need to pay for adult programmes, aided by an expanded mandate for Gavi. Per year, an average of about 1·1 vaccines for 5 billion adults might save one million lives from the targeted diseases. Existing live attenuated vaccines have shown action against multiple pathogens, although COVID-19 trials remain to be done.4Chumakov K, Michael S, Avidan MS, Benn CS, et al. Old vaccines for new infections: exploiting innate immunity to control COVID-19 and prevent future pandemics. PNAS (in press).Google Scholar These vaccines might prove to be valuable additions to adult vaccination schedules in some circumstances. Analogously, preliminary data in preprint suggest that annual influenza vaccination reduces the risk of innza pandemics and perhaps even COVID-19 infection.5Debisarun PA Struycken P Domínguez-Andrés J et al.The effect of influenza vaccination on trained immunity: impact on COVID-19.medRxiv. 2020; (published online Oct 16.) (preprint).https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.14.20212498Google Scholar Should SARS-CoV-2 vaccination need to be seasonal, adult vaccination programmes establish a delivery platform. Moreover, the world might well be entering the era where major zoonotic diseases are not events that happen once a century but once a decade. Thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, the world has endorsed universal access to life-saving vaccines for each of the 125 million children born annually. Adult and child vaccination programmes provide a cost-effective platform to prepare for future pandemics. A far larger market enables dispersed production, incentivises more companies to enter the market, and spurs innovation in vaccine design and delivery. Next, uninterrupted supply of life-saving vaccines cannot be left only to market forces, or worse—insular political decisions. The second pillar we propose is a global vaccine manufacturing compact housed in less populous countries with good scientific and training infrastructure, a respect for legal contracts, and a reputation for fair play. Canada, Norway, Singapore, and Switzerland are possibilities, as might be several others—some of which are in Africa. The manufacturing compact would produce vaccines in the billions, far in excess of domestic demand. The compact would negotiate licences with vaccine producers but have as its core business model the sale of vaccines very near cost price. An independent governance model using professional business or civil service could counter political interference or cronyism. The facilities can learn from the successful Serum Institute of India, which helps vaccinate many of the world's children at low cost, and from Brazil's Fiocruz public partnership.6Jha P, Ra S, Khetrapal S, et al. Strategic issues to be considered in the introduction of coronavirus disease vaccines in South Asia. Asian Development Bank (in press).Google Scholar We estimate such a manufacturing pillar would cost about $4 billion to start (with variable running costs that can be priced into sales). It can proceed quickly. The UK was able to repurpose facilities to produce 100 million of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 10 months on a not-for-profit basis,7Cookson C How the UK boosted its vaccine manufacturing capacity.https://www.ft.com/content/662ab296-2aef-4179-907c-5dba5c355d86Date: Feb 10, 2021Date accessed: May 5, 2021Google Scholar although it did so, in part, out of concern for post-Brexit European vaccine nationalism. A third pillar requires rapidly expanding production capacity by private pharmaceutical companies without encouraging the rent-seeking behaviour enabled by patent law.2Hill AB Kilgore C McGlynn M Jones CH Improving global vaccine accessibility.Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2016; 42: 67-73Crossref PubMed Scopus (27) Google Scholar In theory, the large pharmaceutical companies in the state of California, USA, could meet much of the world's COVID-19 vaccine needs if appropriately incentivised. Cooperation with the private pharmaceutical industry could involve a global funding compact akin to the Japanese model, with taxpayer funding up front in exchange for agreements to produce vaccines in a pandemic. The successful (but sadly defunct) Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria provides lessons on how to constructively engage private sectors.8Tougher S Ye Y et al.ACTwatch GroupEffect of the Affordable Medicines Facility—malaria (AMFm) on the availability, price, and market share of quality-assured artemisinin-based combination therapies in seven countries: a before-and-after analysis of outlet survey data.Lancet. 2012; 380: 1916-1926Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (131) Google Scholar The compact constitutes an essential global public good, the financing of which are areas of comparative advantage for the World Bank and other multilateral agencies. The compact is ambitious, and its organisational challenges daunting. Its costs must be compared with an ongoing pandemic that has already killed more than 3 million people, denied essential schooling to billions of children, driven millions of people into poverty, and cost trillions in lost economic welfare.9Lau LJ Xiong Y The COVID-19 epidemic in China. World Scientific Press, Singapore2020Crossref Scopus (4) Google Scholar, 10Cutler DM Summers LH The COVID-19 pandemic and the $16 trillion virus.JAMA. 2020; 324: 1495-1496Crossref PubMed Scopus (417) Google Scholar The world must urgently provide an alternative to vaccine nationalism that is delaying the end of the pandemic. PJ reports funding from the Canadian Immunity Task Force for epidemiological studies. JB works for Oxford University, which has licensed the intellectual property for the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine to AstraZeneca with no royalty during the course of the pandemic. JB is co-chairing the G7 pandemic preparedness group on innovative manufacturing, vaccine, diagnostics, and antiviral research and development. DAW and DTJ declare no competing interests. Download .pdf (.2 MB) Help with pdf files Supplementary appendix The Lancet COVID-19 CommissionThe COVID-19 pandemic confronts the world with urgent and unsolved challenges. The pandemic marks the third deadly outbreak due to a coronavirus after severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012.1,2 In the absence of effective testing and contact tracing systems in many countries, COVID-19 has claimed more than 500 000 lives and disrupted the entire world, sparing no region.3 Full-Text PDF