COVAX is not working | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Epaper
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Banking
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Thursday
May 15, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Epaper
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Banking
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • Subscribe
    • Epaper
    • GOVT. Ad
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2025
COVAX is not working

Analysis

Catherine Osborn, Foreign Policy
07 August, 2021, 08:55 pm
Last modified: 08 August, 2021, 03:35 pm

Related News

  • Umrah pilgrims struggle with abrupt meningitis vaccination requirement amid shortage
  • Vaccination, early screening can prevent cervical cancer death for women
  • Another pandemic is inevitable, and we're not ready
  • Many long Covid patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on
  • Study on Bangladeshi children confirms lasting impact of typhoid vaccine

COVAX is not working

Will the pandemic’s delta phase be more equitable?

Catherine Osborn, Foreign Policy
07 August, 2021, 08:55 pm
Last modified: 08 August, 2021, 03:35 pm
A woman prays as she visits a relative with COVID-19 at the intensive care unit of the El Cruce-Dr. Néstor Kirchner hospital in Florencio Varela, Argentina, on April 13. RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/Foreign Policy
A woman prays as she visits a relative with COVID-19 at the intensive care unit of the El Cruce-Dr. Néstor Kirchner hospital in Florencio Varela, Argentina, on April 13. RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/Foreign Policy

Last week, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez spoke with unusual candor about the problems plaguing the world's only multilateral mechanism for equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution, COVAX. "COVAX did not work," he said of the initiative, operated jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and two nonprofits.

Last October, Paraguay made its first payment for an order of 4.3 million vaccine doses from COVAX, which was designed to get countries better prices than deals reached directly with manufacturers. But COVAX had only delivered the country 340,800 doses by the end of July. As of the most recent official data on July 25, just 4 percent of Paraguayans had been fully vaccinated.

"We bet on the COVAX mechanism to generate equity," Abdo Benítez said. "I have to say it with pain. I cannot stay quiet."

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

Globally, COVAX is running half a billion doses short of its delivery goals. Though one of its architects said COVAX aimed to "ensure that ability to pay does not become a barrier to accessing [vaccines]," the opposite appears to have occurred. Vaccine-makers have been reluctant to sell to COVAX, and wealthy countries bypassed the initiative to scoop up much of manufacturers' available supply in direct deals. And there has been little technology transfer to expand global vaccine production, meaning that a delay at one plant can cause huge backups that ripple around the world.

Global vaccine distribution has overwhelmingly functioned according to the preferences of pharmaceutical companies and wealthy countries, rather than through an equity-based system. Though the United States, the largest vaccine donor to date, says it allocates doses based on criteria aimed at saving lives, it is doing so at a scale that is a mere one-hundredth of what the WHO says is necessary to get the pandemic under control globally.

Now, as the delta variant takes hold, several Latin American policymakers are scrambling to redefine their vaccine strategies and boost local production.

Seeking new supply. With its COVAX shots delayed, Paraguay has secured new contracts with Pfizer and Moderna. The Dominican Republic, which also complained about COVAX delays, increased its orders from China's Sinovac.

These moves have come with their own challenges. An official from Paraguay, which diplomatically recognizes Taiwan, said a subsidiary of Chinese manufacturer Sinopharm canceled a vaccine contract for "geopolitical reasons," while Pfizer reportedly pressured Latin American governments to sign over unprecedented sovereign assets as guarantees against the cost of potential lawsuits.

Countries have also slowly worked to build local production capacity. A plant in Argentina had its first full course of locally produced Sputnik V doses approved for quality this week. Cuba is exporting its homemade vaccine Abdala to Venezuela and may soon send it to Bolivia, while Brazil's Butanvac and Mexico's Patria shots are in clinical trials. On Wednesday, Chile announced plans to build a plant that will fill and finish doses of Sinovac's vaccine.

At the request of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the United Nations' Alicia Bárcena presented the group with a road map to strengthening regional vaccine access at its annual meeting last week. It includes collaborating on intellectual property (IP) access and bringing more production capacity online.

Weighing compulsory licensing. While negotiations on a special IP waiver for COVID-19 health technologies are stalled at the World Trade Organization (WTO), an existing WTO agreement already permits countries to sidestep pharmaceutical patents and other IP rights in certain emergencies. Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador have passed resolutions facilitating this process in the face of COVID-19.

In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro's executive branch has opposed an IP waiver. But the country's legislature is in the final stages of approving a bill that would allow Congress to issue compulsory licenses according to WTO agreements, permitting local firms to produce and export COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics without the patent holders' consent. Brazil used the threat of such licenses in the early 2000s to pressure pharmaceutical companies to lower HIV drug costs.

The Brazilian bill is backed by groups ranging from AIDS activists and Black activists to center-right senators—a sign of the broad support that remains in the country for this kind of measure.

The cost of current trends. Health experts have warned that, the slower the rate of vaccination around the globe, the more likely it is that new—and potentially more lethal—variants of the coronavirus will develop. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that a roughly $50 billion push to vaccinate 40 percent of all countries' populations by the end of 2021 and 60 percent by mid-2022 will bring $9 trillion in global GDP gains.

Continuing vaccinations at their current scale has consequences for political stability and migration, too. For example, more Nicaraguans were encountered at the US southern border in the last three months than in any 12-month period in the last 20 years. Political repression in Nicaragua plays a role in this, but so too does the fact that Costa Rica's tourism-focused economy, where Nicaraguan migrants usually seek work, remains hard-hit by COVID-19.


Catherine Osborn is the writer of Foreign Policy's weekly Latin America Brief. She is a print and radio journalist based in Rio de Janeiro. Twitter: @cculbertosborn

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Foreign Policy, and is published by special syndication arrangement.

Coronavirus chronicle / Top News

COVAX / Covid / Vaccine

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Shift to market-based exchange rate regime – what does it mean for the economy?
    Shift to market-based exchange rate regime – what does it mean for the economy?
  • A JnU student announcing an indefinite sit-in programme over three-point demand at Kakrail in Dhaka on 14 May night. Photo: Sakhawat Prince/TBS
    'Won't leave until demands met': JnU protesters announce indefinite sit-in at Kakrail over three-point demand
  • Naser Ezaz Bijoy. Sketch: TBS
    Now is an opportune moment to trial market-based exchange rate: StanChart CEO Bijoy

MOST VIEWED

  • Representational image. File Photo: UNB
    Army updates contact numbers for people seeking help across Dhaka, surrounding districts
  • Logo of bkash. Photo: Collected
    bKash posts Tk132cr profit in three months
  • IMF agrees to release $1.3b in June for Bangladesh as disagreement over exchange rate flexibility resolved
    IMF agrees to release $1.3b in June for Bangladesh as disagreement over exchange rate flexibility resolved
  • Collage shows [from left] shows the woman rushing to her house with the cat after, getting into the lift and the cat that was beaten. Collage: TBS
    Animal abuse outrages citizens: Grameenphone condemns incident allegedly involving employee
  • Photo: Screenshot
    Businessman shot in Gulshan after reportedly refusing to pay extortion
  • Walton expands footprint in Sri Lanka
    Walton expands footprint in Sri Lanka

Related News

  • Umrah pilgrims struggle with abrupt meningitis vaccination requirement amid shortage
  • Vaccination, early screening can prevent cervical cancer death for women
  • Another pandemic is inevitable, and we're not ready
  • Many long Covid patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on
  • Study on Bangladeshi children confirms lasting impact of typhoid vaccine

Features

An old-fashioned telescope, also from an old ship, is displayed at a store at Chattogram’s Madam Bibir Hat area. PHOTO: TBS

NO SCRAP LEFT BEHIND: How Bhatiari’s ship graveyard still furnishes homes across Bangladesh

6h | Panorama
Sketch: TBS

‘National University is now focusing on technical and language education’

1d | Pursuit
Illustration: TBS

How to crack the code to get into multinational companies

1d | Pursuit
More than 100 trucks of pineapples are sold from Madhupur every day, each carrying 3,000 to 10,000 pineapples. Photo: TBS

The bitter aftertaste of Madhupur's sweet pineapples

1d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Mustafizur joins Delhi Capitals, but BCB unaware — will he get the NOC?

Mustafizur joins Delhi Capitals, but BCB unaware — will he get the NOC?

1d | TBS SPORTS
Are the murders of Samya and Parvez tied to the same thread?

Are the murders of Samya and Parvez tied to the same thread?

3h | Podcast
Trump urged the President of Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

Trump urged the President of Syria to normalize relations with Israel.

4h | TBS World
Record Gold Prices: Will You Invest or Risk Falling into Trouble?

Record Gold Prices: Will You Invest or Risk Falling into Trouble?

5h | Others
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net