#4/ A vaccine for Covid-19 won’t be enough to end the pandemic: Report

corona pandemicMedical experts have warned that the volume of vaccine available to fight the coronavirus or SARS-CoV-2 in coming years is expected to fall far short of global demand, despite an unprecedented effort to manufacture billions of doses.

About 70 per cent of the world’s population -- or 5.6 billion people -- will probably need to be inoculated to begin to establish herd immunity and slow its spread, The Washington Post reported citing scientific research on Monday.

The scenario public health experts fear most is a worldwide fight in which manufacturers will sell only to the highest bidders, rich countries trying to buy up the supplies, and nations where manufacturers have located hoard vaccines for their own citizens.

“The model of countries thinking only of themselves is not going to work. Even if you’re living somewhere that’s somehow perfectly without any infections, your best efforts to fight the virus are going to fail unless you shut off all your borders and trade,” said Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, a public-private partnership that helps provide vaccines to developing countries.

This is a global problem that requires a global solution,” he added.

International health advocates want to avoid a repeat of 2009, when wealthy countries -- including the United States, led by former President Barack Obama -- were at the head of the line for H1N1 swine-flu vaccine, leaving underdeveloped countries with little supply until after the pandemic subsided.

Such an approach will be sorely tested by current US President Trump and other world leaders with nationalistic impulses and their own anxious populations that want to reduce the deadly threat and bring their economies back to life.