four years later, countries are considering possible improvements in the event of a pandemic

It is time to take stock after the end of the Covax system on January 1, 2024. If in Geneva, we are considering a better distribution of vaccine production sites around the world, India has looked at the weight of confinements on education. Our correspondents describe the situation on site.

On January 11, 2020, China announced that a person had died two days earlier in Wuhan following an infection linked to a new coronavirus. A global panic ensued, with several million deaths and even more people infected. Four years later, Covid-19 seems to be nothing more than a bad memory. Even if many still caught it this winter, few are vaccinated. The Covax system, managed from Geneva, has even stopped functioning since January 1, 2024.

This system, launched by the WHO in 2020, aimed to guarantee equitable access on a global scale to vaccines against Covid-19. Aurélia Nguyen, the former director of Covax, explains that they delivered “two billion doses in 146 countries” and “the vast majority of doses went to the countries that needed them most”of which “68% to African countries” And “74% to low-income countries”. Poor countries have thus achieved an overall vaccination coverage of 57%, a little less than the world average which is more around 67%. This is not so bad for a mechanism set up urgently in the middle of a pandemic, when we did not even know when the vaccine was going to be ready.

Covax highlighted the penalty linked to the lack of production sites

We now know that not everyone was vaccinated at the same time, far from it. Covax was never able to put an end to the “every man for himself” which reigned in obtaining vaccines, what was called “vaccine nationalism”. Europe, the United States and all rich countries in general have not hesitated to place orders directly with Pfizer, Moderna and others. Powerless, the distribution mechanism placed its orders afterwards, or had to wait until these rich countries were willing to give doses. Hence the importance of doing things differently next time, says Aurelia Nguyen. “The African continent has been penalized for the lack of production sites”. From now on, GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, “is in the process of investing more than one billion dollars to help African vaccine production”.

The promoters of Covax estimate that the mechanism made it possible to avoid 2.7 million deaths from Covid. A study published in the journal Nature, on the other hand, says that the race for vaccines in which rich countries have engaged has caused 1.3 million deaths. Covax has therefore not changed the face of the pandemic, but without it, it would undoubtedly have been worse.

Worsening social divide in India: education report

In India, we remember the terrible images of these cohorts of poor working families, forced to leave the cities on foot to return to their villages during the first confinement. So many children are often torn from their schools, sometimes for several years. In cities, the disorganization of schools linked to the pandemic has exploded the divide between the poor and the richest, who have been able to compensate with private lessons or private schools.

If the latest annual report on the state of education in India shows that school benches have once again filled up, some conclusions nevertheless give rise to concern. Indeed, we are seeing a significant drop in the level of mathematics and language, even in rather rich states. We also note a transfer in the number of students from private schools to public schools, which, in India, reflects the impoverishment of many families linked to Covid.

Another phenomenon linked to Covid-19 is the country’s enthusiasm for online education. The central government has made digitalization and homogenization of school curricula a national priority after the pandemic. It aims to put all knowledge and courses on an internet platform accessible to all. However, there are huge disparities in Internet access, between rural and urban areas, and between states. The risk is therefore to further reinforce inequalities, even with good intentions.