Preventing pandemics

New global accord on flu vaccine sharing gives hope

The new international consensus on sharing swine flu vaccine and virus samples is a major victory in the battle against the pandemic. It marks a turning point in international cooperation in the field of medicine and public health. The agreement, brokered by the World Health organisation (WHO), is to be formally adopted by 193 member countries at the forthcoming World Health Assembly later this month. It will allow countries in dire need of low cost medical solutions to public health challenges affordable access to essential vaccines, anti-viral drugs, diagnostic kits and even vaccine production technology during disease outbreaks. The protocol provides for binding regimes for sharing of virus samples and the vaccine prepared from them between developed and developing countries. It is significant that for the first time such an inter-governmental treaty has the support of multinational drug companies. They have agreed to work with national health services and the WHO’s laboratory network to put in place a reliable framework to fight pandemics. Some 30 major pharmaceutical companies have consented to earmark at least 10 per cent of their pandemic vaccine manufacturing capacity for donation to the WHO or for supplying to developing countries at reasonable prices. Going a step further, they have also agreed to transfer the vaccine production technology in case they cannot meet the vaccine requirement during disease outbreaks.

The issues concerning intellectual property rights are proposed to be sorted out with mutual consent to facilitate smooth operation of such technology sharing arrangements. For a change global drug manufacturers have placed human interest above corporate profits.

A World Bank study had estimated the negative impact of the swine flu outbreak in South Asia to have been around 0.6 per cent of the region’s gross national product (GDP). This kind of income loss was on account of inadequate preventive health care and the inability of these countries to afford high-cost vaccines. Besides, some countries like Indonesia declined to share the samples of virus with the WHO and drug companies, making it difficult for cooperative solutions to be found. Had the virus turned more virulent, global health security would have been in real jeopardy. What needs to be realised is that though the active phase of the swine flu pandemic of 2009-10 is over, the killer H1N1 virus that had caused it has not ceased to exist. As is usual in post-pandemic phase, sporadic outbreaks of the disease are continuing to erupt – and may go on for at least a few years – though these are often not recorded or reported to the WHO. The real danger is that if this virus mutates into a more lethal form, which has so far not happened, new life-saving vaccines directed specifically at the mutated strain would be needed. The new global accord will enable timely action in taming an epidemic and, hopefully, in preventing them from turning into pandemics.