Before we even know much about this variant that would have emerged in South Africa, the company Moderna announced to us to embark on the track of another adaptation, that of its recipe, to include the new villain who would have evolved to partially or completely foil the antibodies induced by the vaccines.
It is not yet known whether the new variant will override our immunity, but if it does, it must be recognized that the situation represents a big gold mine for owners of mRNA vaccines. When I speak of the current situation, I think of the combination of this enormous reservoir of unvaccinated in the countries of the South to generate variants causing great fear in the countries of the North, which would always extend more money to protect themselves. . This is a lucrative scenario for the owners of these new immunization formulas. The proof: the simple fact of announcing the emergence of Omicron has significantly increased the shares of the Pfizer and Moderna groups. You know the story of the anti-virus software maker who wouldn’t hate a new kind of computer virus to break through its protection system so it could sell updates to computer owners? Without falling into conspiracy theories, it is a bit like this plot that seems to be being written before our eyes.
I am one of those who believe that vaccines are the central pillar in the fight against this pandemic. But, as President Joe Biden has often mentioned, from how many billions of profits will these large companies agree to release the patents on these molecules against COVID-19? Looks like it’s unfortunately not tomorrow the day before. Yet this is where the solution lies. Laurence Boone, chief economist of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), made it clear that the solution to the pandemic was much more through the sharing of vaccines than by the seclusion of the G20 countries in what they think. be bubbles. She reported that the G20 countries spent 10 trillion dollars to protect their economies during the crisis, while vaccinating the planet, which is a much more sustainable solution, would cost only 50 billion.
Between building an immune bridge with the countries of the South and erecting increasingly tall ramparts around the G20, it will be necessary to choose the most economical solution.
But there is a problem. I hear a lot of people talking about the need to share vaccines to solve the crisis in a sustainable way. The truth is that beyond availability, it is also the type of vaccines that are sent “out of solidarity” to emerging countries that poses a problem. I have just returned from a trip to Africa where AstraZeneca’s vaccines and the Johnson & Johnson one-dose recipe that are sent there are struggling to find a taker. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. You hear Westerners in the media condemn these vaccines – rightly or wrongly – and even, in some cases, you learn that they outright refuse to receive them. You can hardly be faulted for not being enthusiastic about getting it injected. Many perceive in this surge of Western generosity a hint of colonialism. If these vaccines are not good enough for Western populations, why should they be accepted, many skeptics ask. It should therefore come as no surprise that, despite government advertisements calling for vaccination, vaccination programs are lagging behind in many countries in the South. I bet many of those who turned down the vaccine in the south would change their mind if they were sure they would receive a dose of the mRNA vaccine that is being vaccinated Canadians. Let’s be clear, I am not criticizing the effectiveness of this generation of vaccines here. As proof, I myself am immune to two doses of AstraZeneca. What I am bringing up is an image and a perception that are far from trivial.
Share or give
My late mother often made this difference between the verb to share and the verb to give. She said that sharing is letting go of what you hold dear while giving is sometimes a simple way of getting rid of what you do not hold. In this, sending vaccines that we no longer want is not so much sharing.
Unfortunately, since these mRNA vaccines are tenderloins and filet mignon is food for the rich, their use in mass immunization programs in emerging countries is not for tomorrow. What do you want ? It seems that before sharing, we must first serve the third doses to everyone, and maybe even work extra hard to find a new recipe effective against the variant called Omicron. In the meantime, the virus is taking it easy in a gigantic reservoir where it can multiply abundantly and play chess with our vaccines. So goes nature, if we believe in the genius of Darwin hidden in his theory of evolution by natural selection. Historically, between humans and microbes reigns an arms race where each artillery coming out of our laboratories finds its adaptive response.
This life form may be invisible, but it is much tougher and more resilient than us. We can even bet that if the adventure of the Sapiens turned sour, the microbes would survive our passage in the biosphere.
Is it any wonder that a mutant one day manages to completely outsmart our vaccines? Not at all. This way of fooling our defense systems has even become commonplace for pathogens. Last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) told us that the shields developed by microbes were increasingly resistant to all the antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics that humanity once took for weapons of protection. massive. Antimicrobial resistance causes 700,000 deaths worldwide each year. If the trend continues, adds the International Federation of the Drug Industry, this antimicrobial resistance could cause up to 10 million deaths annually by 2050.
Solidarity as a solution
Omicron is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. This means that many variants of interest have followed one another since SARS-CoV-2 landed in our lives. There will probably be more. So, since Pfizer has already made a lot of money, is it not ethically time to talk about a substantial drop in vaccine prices or a temporary lifting of intellectual property rights, as suggested by the President of the United Nations. United States ? If not, what do we do? Extend more and more billions towards these pharmaceutical companies to protect themselves from variants or to hurry to close the borders when the population panics and the media pressure increases? This time, even before knowing whether the variant had actually emerged in southern Africa, air and ground blockades were organized with several countries in the region. However, if this mutant had first been detected in the United States, we would have thought long and hard before closing the borders. The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, rose up on Wednesday, and rightly so, against what he considers a scandal, even an “apartheid” against the targeted African countries.
Confining citizens and travelers from southern African countries may help delay the spread of the virus, but it will not be able to prevent a variant from advancing, as our economic systems are based primarily on open borders.
Have border closures prevented the Delta variant from dispersing across the planet? The newcomer will also end up spreading everywhere, because the globalization of cultures and economies is the bearer of a microbial project. The history of the First Nations of America also contains an unfortunate chapter on this globalization of pathogens by European explorers and settlers. In short, now that everything is intertwined, there is no way to really prevent a virus that has emerged in South Africa from taking the plane on a planetary peregrination.
The only way to avoid these traumatic episodes in a lasting way is through real vaccine solidarity. But not the one which consists in sending in the South the vaccines which the G7 countries do not want. The adage “on a given horse, we do not look at the bridle” does not apply to this delicate subject.