The War of Vaccines over a Pandemic

   We are living in agonising times,because the crematoriums are getting crowded with corpses,and the sports grounds are doing their empty rounds.In Bhopal,people are  rewinding now,the nightmarish event,that devoured many lives,as a fall out of the gas leakage tragedy at the Union Carbide India Ltd.In Uttarpradesh,cremation grounds are being covered with tin sheets either to prevent public view of the colossal deaths happening every day,or to save people from being infected. People die at all times either in bulks or in pieces,due to various reasons.But to die in large numbers,due to the curse and consternation of a contageon,is certainly an avoidable tragedy,though how to avoid it is a mind boggling question.

  While the origin of the pandemic may have its own murky layers made up of either ecological eventualities or evil manipulations,it is certainly a blow of horror  that has virulently gripped almost the entire globe.From the big powers to the impoverished nations,death has proved to be the leveller.Ironically,human response and behavioural reactions during the Covid 19 invasion,are sometimes more depressing than the disease itself.

  It makes every sensible person ask questions such as,why not the people around the world be a little more proactive in being protective;why not governments set aside politics for a while;why not the crowd mentality take a holiday for some time and above all why not the principles of globalization serve its purpose at least during these gruesome days.The international trade control machinery can very well streamline the supply of vaccines,instead of letting the big Pharma firms make unethical,profiteering  calculations,in the name of of Intellectual Property Rights. 

  I believe the emergence of globalization in the Nineteen Nineties was seen as the dawn of world countries coming together to play an even game in trading under neutrality norms,envisaged through the eyes of the World Trade Organisation.An even game is that which does not make the biggies small,but lifts the developing economies to have their voices heard for upgrading their trade margins,for a higher growth.But the dawn still remains a dark patch.

   Under normal circumstances,the international trade governing forums could be forgiven for being meek spectators of the still uneven trade path,between the developed and developing nations.But in an extraordinary situation like the one prevailing now,is it not the duty of such world bodies to regulate the mood of greed for making huge gains over vaccines and rectify the suffocating situation that prevails?

  Though the common man may not be aware of the vaccine war and the game of supremacy played by a section of the big pharmaceutical companies,the fact is that a huge section of the world population stays more perplexed by the stories about efficacy and complications of vaccines,than about the competitive pricing labels and the availability logistics.

   Now trade has triggered a vaccine war, fleecing the world population,even as the pandemic is claiming lives like tsunami.It is high time the World Trade Organisation comes out with an instant agenda for an even distribution of all vaccines,at affordable price to all counties,so that the alarming calamity is not further allowed to eat away a major chunk of humanity.Otherwise,it would only be presumed that the pandemic was born of the human greed for trade profits and the ongoing vaccine war is a corollary of that greed. 

P.Chandrasekaran