Drug Wars: COVID-19 vaccine will redefine global strategy, world order

In this article, senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah explores how COVID-19 vaccine will redefine global strategy and the subsequent world order in the post-COVID era.

New Delhi:On Friday, US President Donald Trump avidly batted for a medicine called Remdesivir whose efficacy he vouched for in combating COVID 19 cases. A few weeks earlier, Trump had held out the anti-malarial Hydroxychloroquinine as a ‘miracle drug’ against COVID 19.

And then on Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted of ‘enormous evidence’ that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese Lab in Wuhan. “Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories,” Pompeo told ABC News.

Both statements are significant. Historically, pandemics and epidemics have had a direct impact on the state. Powerless against diseases, many empires have fallen—all the more reason for rulers and state leaders to try and stamp legitimacy amid the chaos caused by contagions.

Interestingly, just two days before the US President’s statement on Remdesivir, ‘Lancet’, the world’s oldest and most prominent medical journal, brought out a paper on Remdesivir where a study concluded: “No specific antiviral drug has been proven effective for the treatment of patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)…Ongoing studies with larger sample sizes will continue to inform our understanding of the effect of remdesivir on COVID-19.”

Never in history has humanity been as desperate for a cure as the hunt for an antidote to COVID 19.

COVID 19 has made no distinctions of race, colour and creed and has proved to be the great leveller in bringing the high and mighty including the rich and powerful nations to their knees. In fact, it is the developed nations that are bearing the brunt of the scourge where New York, London, Brussels and Madrid are the global hotspots.

Till now, the deadly virus has infected more than 35 lakh worldwide and killing about 2.5 lakh people.

At least a hundred entities including national governments and non-governmental entities are engaged in a no-holds-barred race to be the first to invent the vaccine.

Says Kumar Sanjay Singh, who teaches history in Delhi University: “This scramble for successful testing and production of a vaccine will also provide the beachhead for the emerging world order. Control over production and distribution of vaccine will be the grand road to power.”

A vaccine, therefore, will impact the world order and accordingly the power positioning among the nations of the world. In other words, the vaccine will come the power to create spheres of influence among the comity of nations of the world, who would be willing to trade anything to get adequate consignments of vaccines.

Without doubt, available capacities of vaccine production is a significant constraint, as currently less than 40 per cent of the expected international demand can be met, even if the entire vaccine production capacities are diverted for protection of COVID 19 vaccine.

Adds Prof Singh: “Paucity of supply will result in an intense power play that will be leveraged by the country controlling the vaccine. If the inventing country has the necessary supply of capital we may witness the emergence of a hyperpower. If the inventing and investor countries are different we will witness reworking of power blocks. Here, Trump enforced American isolationism to open up interesting scenarios.”

Taking the current stages of medical research into consideration, there are three distinct geographies from which a vaccine is most likely to emerge—US, Europe and China.

Read:'New' Cold War will haul military spend after pandemic disrupts it

A vaccine originating in the US will reiterate American dominance and bring followers and allies to rally around the US to buttress their allegiance. It will weaken the process that may lead to a bipolar or multi-power world.

A European COVID 19 vaccine will make the US subservient to emerging European interests and make the links more tenuous than they are now. It may also prompt Europe to chart a more independent course in strategy and power play.

On the other hand, a vaccine invented by the Chinese will establish an immediate counterpoint to US dominance and reinforce China’s stated aim of being a global power.

ETV Bharat has recently reported on a World Health Organization (WHO) paper prepared in 2009 and meant for internal circulation only that has been very recently released by Wikileaks.

The paper envisages the kind of inequitable world that can result after vaccines for pandemics are invented. It says: “The vast majority of developing countries will only receive significant quantities of vaccine after the needs of developed countries are met, which will likely be many months after the onset of a pandemic, months during which pandemic mortality may be severe.”

“Developing country leaders are likely to face question from their citizens if they remain vulnerable while the citizens of wealthy countries are vaccinated; this situation could become especially tense if a pandemic is severe enough to cause serious socioeconomic disruption,” it says.

It will be wise for India to adopt the wait-and-watch posture and not jumping on to bandwagon without keeping in mind the changing possibilities of a post-COVID 19 world order.