Devex CheckUp: How omicron has (and hasn’t) galvanized vaccine equity

With more than half the world’s countries still short of the goal to vaccinate 40% of the population against COVID-19 by year’s end, the emergence of the omicron variant stoked public panic and sounded the alarm about one of the major consequences of low vaccine coverage. But will the renewed urgency translate into action?

• Since omicron was first reported on Nov. 24, vaccinations in the EU have spiked by 48%, while in Africa they’re down by 29%, according to Our World in Data. Other parts of the world also saw changes in vaccination rates: Vaccinations went up by 825% in Honduras as of Dec. 3, and 490% in Burundi as of Dec. 5. On the other hand, Cameroon saw shots drop by 95%, and in South Africa — where vaccination is up 56% since Nov. 24 — the government has struggled with its vaccine rollout for months due to supply constraints and hesitancy.

• There has also been an increased drive for vaccination in various countries including South Africa and Botswana. Speaking to the press today, Africa CDC chief Dr. John Nkengasong said the organization is working with individual countries to strengthen their plans for rollouts, while WHO says it is working to identify and correct bottlenecks at the country level.  

• "We will continue to see more dangerous variants emerge and prolong this pandemic until and unless we get the entire world vaccinated and protected," says Carolyn Reynolds, co-founder of the Pandemic Action Network. “Omicron is the smoke alarm that the world is on fire,” she says. “We need the global fire brigade to come urgently and do whatever it takes to get more jabs in arms faster.”

• Earlier this week, USAID chief Samantha Power announced the Initiative for Global Vaccine Access, outlining a U.S. plan to spend an additional $400 million to raise vaccination rates in low- and middle-income countries. Meanwhile, the EU is preparing for a key summit with the African Union in February — and an official said that it would be impossible to do much to close the vaccination gap between the two continents before then, but that the EU would “offer some guarantees and some perspective to the African partners.”

Read: ‘Omicron is the smoke alarm that the world is on fire’

A shot heard round the world

During an Africa CDC stakeholder meeting on vaccine manufacturing this week, a regional representative at Pfizer outlined the myriad challenges of finding local manufacturing partners for transferring its vaccine technical know-how. Among the many issues is the lack of consistent water supply in some areas.

What’s more, a dearth of available financing isn’t the barrier to expanding Africa’s vaccine manufacturing sector, according to speakers at the stakeholder meeting. Instead, the problem is the low number of bankable projects ready for financing.

Devex Pro: Increasing the bankability of vaccine manufacturing projects in Africa

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Team CheckUp wants to know: What is one thing the COVID-19 pandemic has changed about global development that you hope will continue once this crisis ends? Write to us at checkup@devex.com, and we may quote your answer in a future edition.

Preparing for ‘Disease X’

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations recently announced an expansion of its vaccine testing network, inviting laboratories from Africa, South America, and Oceania to join. The expansion also entails new assessments for conditions such as chikungunya, Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome, Nipah virus infection, Rift Valley fever, and “Disease X” — WHO’s nickname for an unknown future health threat.

This is a key preparation measure that countries can engage in, and using the same methodology makes it easier for everyone to compare results, says Valentina Bernasconi, project lead for CEPI’s laboratory network.

“What if something like COVID happens again? It would probably happen. We don't know when, we don't know how, and we don't know which virus [it] will be, so we really need to be prepared,” she says.

Read: What you should know about CEPI’s expanded vaccine testing network 

Low grade

That’s the average country score — out of a possible 100 — for overall pandemic preparedness in the new 2021 Global Health Security Index report. This year’s figure marks a slight decline from 2019, when the score was 40.2. In both years, the United States — which has seen more deaths due to COVID-19 than any other country — topped the global ranking for overall national preparedness.

Read: World ‘dangerously unprepared’ for future pandemics, 2021 GHS Index finds

ICYMI: Over the past year and a half, Devex reporters took a deep dive into the state of global health security — including where it has fallen short and where it’s headed. Read all of the findings in our special report. 

Lessons from TikTok

Self-described “woke TikTok king” Karan Menon’s new 95-second video has gone viral, even among policy advocates. In it, he explains “vaccine apartheid” via a story about two housemates, with one needing to put out a fire and the other hoarding water but failing to see what a blaze elsewhere in the house has to do with his room.

“I watched it like 10 times!” Max Lawson, the head of inequality policy at Oxfam International, tells Amruta. “There's nothing quite like satire to show the reality of what's going on,” he says, adding that the metaphor “cuts through the noise.”

In a tweet, Public Citizen Research Director Zain Rizvi agreed.

What we’re reading

Serum Institute of India is halving its production of AstraZeneca vaccine doses due to a lack of orders. [BBC]

A small South African study suggests people vaccinated with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may be vulnerable to breakthrough infections of the omicron variant. [The New York Times]

Medicago and GlaxoSmithKline say the world's first plant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate has 71% efficacy, although their trial did not include the omicron variant. [The Washington Post]