Rethinking the pandemic

Let’s create a virus-free era by closing the vaccination gap between rich and poor countries

THE Covid-19 pandemic has significantly changed the world globally.

There have been more than 193 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 so far, including more than 4 million deaths. On the African continent, more than 6.4 million confirmed cases were recorded, and more than 164 000 people died due to Sars-CoV-2 infection. The pandemic has also caused crucial economic challenges across the world by creating job losses, increasing poverty, social dislocation, loss of life and social insecurity.

Countries are endlessly striving to battle and overcome this economic as well as social crisis. It has obstructed the direction of the countries in accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has attached great importance to the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa, and provided systematic support to African countries by developing the preparation and response plan for this pandemic, improving the testing and surveillance capability and purchasing the vaccine via the Covax initiative.

China, as a model country, has greatly contributed to the world in fighting this pandemic. Chinese scientists shared the sequence of the SarsCoV-2 in the first place, and helped to develop the testing kits and pave the road to the development of different Covid-19 vaccines.

Chinese medical doctors have undertaken the epidemiology, clinical manifestations, diagnosis, treatments and prevention that can be shared, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and the rest of the world.

The Chinese government also donated thousands of millions of personal protective equipment as well as Covid-19 vaccines, especially to African countries, helping to fight this pandemic.

The SARS-CoV-2 is a totally new virus to us and we knew virtually nothing about it when the pandemic broke out. However, some countries have been bent on going down the road of politicisation, stigmatisation and ideological framing. Former US president Donald Trump claimed that the virus was deliberately created in a laboratory, but could not even justify it himself. The Wall Street Journal also published an exclusive report which quoted the so-called unclassified US intelligence report, to once again hype up the “lab-leak” hypothesis. The purpose is self-evident. It is aimed at obstructing co-operation on the global origin-tracing, deflecting responsibility for its own poor Covid-19 response at home, and using this as an opportunity to defame and blame China.

Countries did not or were not willing to take the right action to control this pandemic. Some of them were inactive and failed to focus on fighting this pandemic, resulting in a wide spread of the Sars-CoV-2, both domestically and abroad. Vaccine nationalism and competition is another problem. The richest countries have secured billions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines, while developing economies are still struggling to access supplies.

Until now the African continent has only administered about 21 million doses, while some countries are stockpiling millions of doses. No country in need of vaccines should be left behind, nor should any people waiting for the vaccine be forgotten. Otherwise the global anti-pandemic effort will be derailed and the pandemic will never end.

We should conduct sourcing-tracing of the virus in a scientific way, rather than in a political way. Early this year, the WHO released a report on the joint WHO-China study of the Sars-CoV-2 origin, which analysed the four means of transmission, and has drawn clear conclusions, including acknowledging that “the lab leak is extremely unlikely”.

This is an important first step. Recently, the WHO has planned to conduct the phase 2 origin tracing study. This study is necessary, but should be conducted based on what we have known, and should continue to look for more possible early cases in a wider range around the globe and to further understand the role of cold chain and frozen food in virus transmission.

Countries should co-operate with each other and be more responsible to their citizens and to the world. We have seen a lot of evidence that countries suffered wave after wave of this pandemic due to negative attitudes and failure to take the right action in time. There must not be competition in handling this virus, as it has now spread globally. The outbreak of the pandemic is a natural disaster and nobody should be condemned due to the first detection of new viruses.

What we should do is to upgrade the capacity of human beings to respond and reduce the impacts of the disaster to all humanity, as one societal community. There are several similar events in history, such as the outbreak of Ebola, HIV or other viruses. If we do want to blame someone or some countries for the losses during this pandemic, it should be those which did not care about their people and did not take the right action to contain the virus, rather than to blame the country where the virus is said to have originated first.

Covid-19 vaccine is a global public good. Let’s enter a virus-free era by creating, with the speed of light, a healthy and socially secure world for all by sharing all the vaccinations equitably to all in the world.