The vaccine saved a million lives - but it could have been more

 BBC health editor Fergus Walsh's programme on BBC-2 tonight was enlightening and thought-provoking. His article on the Web is even more so. The message was that nationalist politics prevented a fair distribution of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which had been designed to be available at cost, in a form not needing any special storage requirements. There was also a hint that US pharmaceutical companies were not happy about an alternative product to their own undercutting them on price, even though it was quickly apparent that demand would exceed supply.

It may be significant that the US has still not approved the Oxford vaccine, alone as far as one can see among leading nations. Its initial hesitancy was caused by a rare reaction to the adenoviral vector method used by the Oxford vaccine. The same method is used by the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine which has, however, been give emergency approval by the FDA.

There were some omissions from the TV programme. It was not made clear that the Oxford team started work on their vaccine back in January 2020, as soon as they received the genetic sequence of the virus from China. The naïve viewer may have got the impression that it was Health secretary Hancock's first order for the vaccine in April 2020 which got the ball rolling. That would have lent credence to the Johnson government's line that they acted as soon as they were aware of the dangers of the virus, in March 2020. The programme could also have named the other vaccines which became available during the year, the Russian Sputnik V (taken by some South American countries) and several from China, the most effective of which, Sinovac, was sold to Hungary as well as being used internally and donated to the Covax scheme . and several from China, including the most effective, Sinopharm, the third most widely-distributed Covid-19 vaccine. Sputnik V has been exported mainly to the global south, though Hungary in the EU has taken it, as well as some Sinopharm. 

I am unrepentant in my view that it was the duty of the government to ensure that all UK citizens had access to at least an initial dose of an approved vaccine as soon as practicable. What I do find unforgivable is our leaning on India to divert Oxford vaccine from her Serum Institute, which should have been put into Indian arms and thereafter donated to Covax, when AstraZeneca's facilities in Europe fell behind schedule. Even worse was the stockpiling of vaccine in England for six weeks before passing it on to Covax when it was close to its expiration date. 

The answer is, as Dr Sarah Gilbert of the Oxford team demanded, that vaccine manufacturing facilities should be provided in developing nations. This should start now, in readiness for the next pandemic, which cannot be far away. The UK's assistance to Commonwealth countries, which seems hitherto to have been confined to advising their rulers on the use of tax havens, should major on that as well as ensuring that the logistics of delivering vaccine in good time are right.

[updated/corrected 2022-2-9]