Global Vaccine Gap

A pandemic is an outbreak of global proportions. It can occur when an infection due to a bacterium or virus becomes capable of spreading widely and rapidly. COVID-19 is a disease that develops due to infection with a type of coronavirus. Since March 2020, it has had an unprecedented impact across the globe.

Vaccine development is an arduous process, taking about 10-15 years on average to accomplish. But with the imminent worries surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic putting unprecedented pressure on our healthcare systems and economies, unprecedented measures needed to be put in place.

That’s why, through a series of announcements beginning on March 30th, the U.S. The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) started a program they coined “Operation Warp Speed,” (OWS) in an attempt to expedite a COVID-19 vaccine. Since then, several countries have undertaken various experiments to produce vaccines against the Covid-19 disease.

Vaccination can change the ecology of infectious diseases in human populations. But the potential eradication or control of many infectious diseases is threatened by a staggering disparity in vaccination efforts worldwide.

The successes of the 20th-century global immunization programs have been significant: the eradication of smallpox, the elimination of poliomyelitis in Europe, etc.

Yet, a huge gap exists between the industrialized world and sub-Saharan Africa in the immunization rates for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP), the most accessible and affordable childhood vaccine.

The persistence of this gap is an outcome of unsustained immunization efforts along with a deteriorating infrastructure and lack of political will. Furthermore, immunization rates of other vaccines, such as that for hepatitis B, are far below that for DTP. Although the global community is responding to worldwide needs with vaccine initiatives and funds, success cannot be realized until there is agreement on, and commitment to, the prerequisites for successful immunization programs at national levels.

Considering the already developed COVID-19 vaccines, such as Covishield, and Sputnik, the global fight is being undermined by supply, financing and logistics problems, leaving mostly poorer nations behind as other countries significantly lower deaths and new cases through faster vaccination programmes.

To “close the immunization gap” and meet global vaccination targets, it is important to reach out to children living in underserved remote areas, in deprived urban settings and in fragile states, and to reduce missed opportunities by routinely checking immunization records of all children and adults visiting a health facility for any reason and administering required vaccines accordingly, as also encouraged by the WHO.

Three arguments have historically dominated discussions about the cause of unequal access to vaccines in poorer countries: the primacy of healthcare infrastructure; constraints imposed by insufficient funding; and the belief that vaccine approval in high-income countries is a precondition for discussing access in other settings.

The following solutions are recommended, and high-income countries are requested to act upon, in order to curb the Global vaccine gap.

The primacy of Infrastructure: An exclusive focus on the primacy of basic public health interventions, can block the opportunity to build infrastructure through vaccination. For example, access to rotavirus vaccination has been questioned on the grounds that it might undermine the urgency of providing clean water and sanitation for all. Vaccines are one of the few interventions that can save lives even when healthcare infrastructure is inadequate or non-existent.

Funding: Are the costs of closing the global vaccination gap out of proportion to the funding available? One reaction to the imbalance which has been created is to calculate the funding shortfall and advocate for its redress. But, rational policy-making depends on an analysis of both costs and benefits. In response to that, vaccines can confer macroeconomic benefits such as improved labour productivity that may supersede the substantial directly measured health benefits. The International Finance Facility for Immunisation (www.iff-immunisation.org), which provides immediate aid from wealthier countries to GAVI, is a financial solution that represents a first step in accelerating the pace of investment in immunisation.

Clinical Research Capacity: Responsibility for monitoring of vaccine research and development should fall to the public sector—or public-private partnerships—to minimise delays in cases where vaccine manufacturers did not pursue efficacy testing in countries where diseases are endemic. Such parallel research would expand scientific capacity, encourage the performance of more appropriate and ethical clinical trials.

A few other solutions: Wider global availability of affordable vaccines can be achieved through building local or regional clinical trials and vaccine production capacity. Implementation research, by directly demonstrating the benefits of vaccination, can spur country-level leadership.

The above-mentioned solutions are hoped to have an impact and have an impact on curbing the Global Vaccine Gap.

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