Vaccine Diplomacy Part ii

It has been over a year, and this pandemic has changed our outlook on a lot of things. It has affected politics, our education, our families, and many other parts of our day-to-day lives. The pandemic’s effect on politics hasn’t always been negative. It has been positive in the way it has deepened ties with different countries and improved or started new relationships that had either been crumbling or hadn’t existed before. Vaccine diplomacy hasn’t been that new of a strategy to strengthen ties or form new ones with foreign countries, but it is a strategy that has been brought to light once more. In our earlier post, “Vaccine Diplomacy”, we talked about what vaccine diplomacy was and the two main countries that were part of it. In this post, we’ll talk about the international initiative which distributes vaccines, as well as Russia and the United States’ hand in vaccine diplomacy.

COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) is an organization that has been put together by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, as well as the World Health Organization. This organization was made to help produce vaccines faster, as well as be able to distribute them to people around the world quicker. As of now, COVAX provides 20% of the vaccine doses needed for countries around the world, and they are able to ship the vaccines as soon as they are produced. Since COVAX is one organization that is shipping doses to the poorer countries around the world, they are upset with the trades different countries are making with each other because manufacturers of vaccines can only produce so much at a time. As a result, countries are always ahead of COVAX in the line of receiving vaccine doses, which makes it hard for them to distribute the vaccines as fast as they had planned to.

COVAX is just one body of distributing vaccines. Many countries participate in it, such as Russia and the USA. Russia had come up with their vaccine, Sputnik V, back in early August of 2020 but hadn’t used it immediately because people weren’t sure if it would be safe to take, since it hadn’t gone under much testing. Once it had been thoroughly tested, it was shown that it was 91% effective against the virus, but scientists are worried that it won’t be as effective against mutations. As of recently, Sputnik V vaccine doses have been shipped to many countries from Russia, showing that they are participating in vaccine diplomacy. This opportunity will help Russia make ties with other countries because other vaccine producers, like Pfizer and Moderna, have been in high demand in the more developed countries, so this is the time to forge relations with countries that need vaccines but aren’t able to get them.

Since the Biden administration has taken office only this year, this would be the time for them to forge better relationships with other countries, and that is what he is doing. He is working with Australia, India, and Japan to produce one billion doses of vaccines in India, and then planning to distribute them to countries in the Pacific. He has also talked to Mexico about sending them 4 million doses. The United States of America hasn't had a big part in vaccine diplomacy April 21st, but Dr. Krishna Udayakumar - the founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center - believes that with the surplus of vaccines that will be inevitable in the US by summer, they will be able to share more doses with the world after focusing on vaccinating their own people first.

Countries working together in a time like this is crucial because the more people that come together, the more problems are solved and creative ideas are produced. In this case, we will be able to overcome this pandemic together if we all do our part. Wearing a mask, socially distancing, and waiting our turn to be vaccinated are the main things we can do to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, therefore reducing the risk of new strains being created. We want to do all that we can to reduce the strain put on the shoulders of our front-line workers. Life has been hard ever since this pandemic started, but if we hold on for a little bit longer, life will return to a semblance of the normal we had before this virus.

Until next time, Keerthana

Sources:

1. COVAX vaccine

2. Welcome to the age of vaccine diplomacy

3. Sputnik V, a host of coronavirus mutations and a rocket stack

4. Russia scores points with vaccine diplomacy, but snags arise

5. A Case For 'Vaccine Diplomacy' Amid Impending U.S. Vaccine Surplus

6. America Is Overtaking China in Vaccine Diplomacy

7. Western powers have lost the vaccine diplomacy battle - Economist Intelligence Unit