LONDON – A dispute between the United Kingdom and the European Union over the export of Covid-19 vaccines could harm not only the current vaccination campaigns, but also harm the fight against new variants, experts warn.
On Wednesday, the European Commission said “reciprocity” would be among the new criteria that it would consider before authorizing vaccine exports outside the 27-country bloc. The EU’s vaccination campaign lags behind other countries, including the United Kingdom, as Covid-19 cases increase on the continent.
The discussion about an export ban last week brought calls for cooperation from Britain, which depends in part on Europe’s vaccine supply.
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides emphasized that the new rules are not an export ban – but experts warn that international tensions like these can have serious side effects. The European Commission and the United Kingdom issued a brief statement on Wednesday night to say they were in talks on vaccine plans and EU heads of state will discuss this at a virtual summit on Thursday.
“If trade restrictions and other supply-side bottlenecks prevent universal coverage, then that would really make us all less secure,” said Rob Yates, director of the global health program at the think tank Chatham House in London.
“With new variants that may require a new booster vaccine, we may need to ensure universal coverage of these new vaccines annually.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, health experts have emphasized that no one is safe until there is global access to vaccines. And the longer the virus circulates, the greater the chance of developing new, more infectious or deadly variants.
Export bans and conflicts over the distribution of vaccines could only hinder these efforts.
“There is a connection with vaccine coverage, because if you delay vaccine coverage, over time you create more opportunities for replication in large communities and emerging strains and variants,” said Dr. Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Health Global University of Geneva.
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Europe now faces a third wave of the virus, along with new blockages in several countries. On Wednesday, Kyriakides said the bloc has seen an increase in the spread of variants, including the South African variant, which has been identified in 18 countries.
Just over 10% of adults in the EU received their first injection, compared to more than 50% of adults in the UK and 32% of adults in the United States.
President Joe Biden said there will be enough doses in the US for each adult by the end of May, and the UK hopes to be able to offer injections to all adults by the end of July. The EU’s goal is to vaccinate 70% of adults by the end of the summer.
It is not known that the United States and the United Kingdom exported vaccines. At the same time, EU-based manufacturers have exported at least 41 million doses to 33 countries since the beginning of February, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week.
Last week, the White House announced a plan for the first US exports: 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Canada and Mexico. The vaccine has not yet been approved for use in the USA
The United States also said it would donate up to $ 4 billion to the humanitarian program COVAX, which aims to distribute vaccines fairly between rich countries and the developing world. However, critics say these countries need vaccines more than money.
And any slowdown in the distribution of vaccines because of trade barriers can worsen the situation.
“Trade restrictions, to the extent that they actually prevent adequate and orderly distribution of the vaccine internationally, may indirectly create more problems in the future, creating more variants with which we do not know how to deal,” said Flavio Toxvaerd, an economic epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge.
According to Matt Linley, a senior analyst at Airfinity, a scientific analysis company, the supply of vaccines in the United States could also come under pressure if the EU enacts trade restrictions.
“There is a possibility that countries will start putting pressure on the US to start releasing doses of Pfizer and Moderna if they are not leaving Europe,” he said.
For the moment, UK politicians this week emphasized the need for international cooperation on vaccines in what appeared to be an effort to avoid escalating tensions with the EU. But these commercial pressures are likely to remain in the near future, according to Yates. from Chatham House.
“This is not going to go away, especially if we are considering the need for booster vaccines and new vaccines coming in,” he said. “This can really become a major problem for global health going forward.”