by JONATHAN TENNENBAUM
China-Russia collaboration is helping to get cheap and effective Covid-19 vaccines to the developing world
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented mobilization of advanced biotechnology on a worldwide scale. By any measure, progress in developing, testing and deploying vaccines has proceeded with breathtaking speed.
Hardly more than a year after the pandemic started its lethal spread, scores of millions of people are being immunized using a variety of newly-developed vaccines with proven effectiveness against the Covid-19 virus. A technological and logistical basis now being laid will permit rapid responses to mutants as well as to future pandemic threats that may arise.
All is not well, however.
At present vaccination rates, it could take as long as seven years to reach levels of immunity sufficient to completely eliminate Covid-19’s spread. Production capacities are wholly inadequate to meet the demand, with the lion’s share of vaccines going to wealthy countries while developing countries face less certain fates.
Russia and China are rising to the rich versus poor challenge by supplying much-needed vaccines to nations that would otherwise be far down on the global list. While the US and EU remain preoccupied with their own Covid-19 problems, Russian and Chinese companies are forming partnerships with each other and countries around the world.
That “vaccine diplomacy” success, however, is already starting to raise concerns in the West.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, originally poo-pooed in the West as a mere publicity stunt by President Vladimir Putin, has not only proved to be one of the most effective vaccines – providing over 90% protection – but also is inexpensive and easy to use.
Unlike many of other Covid-19 vaccines, Sputnik V can be stored in ordinary refrigerators at between two and eight degrees centigrade. Together, a first and second (booster) dose cost a mere US$20.
Sputnik V is currently approved in 18 countries, with vaccinations underway in Bolivia, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Palestine, the UAE, Paraguay, Hungary, Armenia, Serbia, Venezuela and Iran.
Mexico plans to administer 7.4 million doses of Sputnik V by March, with at least 16 million doses to follow.
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