(Expansion) – The coronavirus pandemic has been one of the most challenging threats humanity has faced in a long time, pushing us to the limit in more ways than one (health, economic, social, regulatory, and even personal by confining us for more than a year).
Although there are still pending obstacles and problems to be solved, there is already a light at the end of the road thanks to the vaccination campaigns. These are not exempt from a series of problems, such as the uneven pace at which countries are implementing them, with those with the greatest economic resources benefiting the most.
This reflection focuses specifically on the limitations of vaccines and arises from the following question: why are vaccines not enough for all countries?
Various difficulties have delayed the production of vaccines, including that the productive capacity of global pharmaceutical manufacturing is barely a third of what is needed to immunize the world’s population and end the pandemic, which amounts to close to than 7.7 billion people, according to the Medicine Law & Policy organization. By the end of March, not even 500 million doses had been produced, when at least 10 billion are needed.
This situation has caused a hoarding of the richest countries because, according to the BBC, 75% of the vaccines produced until February were for 10 developed countries; despite the claims of the World Health Organization (WHO) itself.
However, that hasn’t been the only contentious hurdle on vaccines. Intellectual property has also prevented manufacturing and distribution from accelerating their rates, since only the companies that own patents are authorized to produce them, limiting their quantity and influencing their prices.
On the one hand, it is true that patents are a mechanism to protect artistic and technological creations and encourage innovation; on the other hand, the pressing conditions of the health emergency demand greater vaccine production, which leads to a legal, health, economic, creative and ethical dilemma.
Of course, different positions have already been formed: the WHO condemned the hoarding and asked the UN to temporarily remove the intellectual property of vaccines to speed up their production. Aligned with this approach, the United States, one of the countries benefiting from hoarding, with one of the fastest and most efficient vaccination schemes, supports that other countries with the capacities and infrastructure can also produce the vaccine (Mexico, South Korea , Canada, Brazil and India), arguing that many investigations were financed with public resources.
On the contrary, the pharmaceutical companies have shown their dissatisfaction arguing that this proposal could discourage both innovation and investment in the sector. In addition, they considered that the reason for the delays in production is not patents, but the shortage of inputs caused by the high demand in the preparation of doses in record time.
Others who are against the opening of ownership are the majority of the G20 countries, who propose that companies voluntarily provide temporary licenses to produce the vaccine, but without approving the patent exemption.
Undoubtedly, it is a complex problem that requires deep analysis and in order to solve it, the positions of all the actors involved must be taken into account. The objective must continue to be to put an end to the health emergency, which, being so extraordinary, could merit some exceptions to the existing conventions.
If Hamlet had been written in 2020 and not 1600, perhaps the dilemma would not have been about being, but protecting (vaccines).
Editor’s Note: Ángel Huerta is an economic analyst at Grupo Financiero Bx +. He is an economist and a mathematician’s apprentice. He enjoys tacos, classical music, and academic discussions about economic growth and social development. Tweet, then exist in. The opinions expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.
