Russia and China seek to increase global influence

LONDON – International diplomacy is likely to determine who will have access to coronavirus vaccines in the coming months, analysts told CNBC, with countries like Russia and China using one of the world’s most sought-after products to promote their own interests abroad.

The launch of the Covid-19 vaccines is expected to help end the pandemic. Although many countries have not yet started vaccination programs, even high-income nations are facing a shortage of supplies as manufacturers struggle to increase production.

Russia and China made the distribution of face masks and protective equipment to the hard-hit countries a central principle of diplomatic relations last year. Both countries are now taking a transactional approach to vaccine delivery.

Agathe Demarais, director of global forecasting for the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC by phone that Russia, China and, to a lesser extent, India, are betting on providing Covid vaccines to emerging or low-income countries to promote their interests.

“Russia and China have been doing this for a long, long time … especially in emerging countries, because they feel that traditional Western powers are withdrawing from these countries,” said Demarais.

“In the past, although it is still the case, we saw that China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, we saw that Russia did a number of things, especially in Middle Eastern countries with nuclear plants, and vaccine diplomacy is a brick novelty throughout the building in its attempt to strengthen its global position. “

This strategy is likely to make Russia and China consolidate a long-term presence in countries around the world, said Demarais, noting that the fundamental importance of vaccines to populations will make it “super, super complicated” for countries to resist pressure diplomatic in the future.

The problem for Moscow and Beijing, however, is that “there is a big, big chance” for both to over-promise and under-deliver, she added.

The Russian vaccine Sputnik V and Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac have already started to be launched worldwide. In total, 26 countries, including Argentina, Hungary, Tunisia and Turkmenistan, have authorized Russia’s Covid vaccine. China’s customer queue includes Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, among others.

Analysts say Russia and China have typically signed supply agreements that reinforce pre-existing political alliances, but the problems of producing vaccines manufactured in the West could be a sufficient incentive for some non-traditional allies to look to Moscow and Beijing.

Russia and China are currently unable to meet the vaccine supply demands of their respective domestic markets and still export to countries around the world. Production represents the main obstacle to this challenge, while many high-income countries have ordered more doses than they need.

A report published by the Economist Intelligence Unit last month projected that the majority of the adult population in advanced economies would be vaccinated in the middle of next year. In contrast, this schedule extends to the beginning of 2023 for many middle-income countries and until 2024 for some low-income countries.

He highlights the global gap between supply and demand and the strict division between high and low income countries with regard to access to the vaccine.

Last month, the World Health Organization’s top official warned that the world was on the verge of a “catastrophic moral failure” because of Covid’s unequal vaccine policies.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on January 18 that it was clear that even speaking the language of equitable access to the vaccine, “some countries and companies continue to prioritize bilateral agreements, bypassing COVAX, raising prices and trying to jump ahead of the row. “

“This is wrong,” he added.

Tedros condemned what he described as a “me first” approach by high-income countries, saying it is self-destructive and puts the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people at risk. Almost all high-income countries have prioritized the distribution of vaccines to their own populations.

When asked if there was any prospect of countries changing their so-called I approach first after the WHO warning about vaccine diplomacy, Demarais replied, “No. It won’t happen. I follow very closely and it’s all very depressing.”

COVAX is one of the three pillars of the so-called Access Tool Accelerator COVID-19, launched by WHO, the European Commission and France last April. It focuses on equitable access to Covid’s diagnostics, treatments and vaccines to help less wealthy countries.

Analysts have long been skeptical about how efficiently COVAX can deliver Covid vaccines to low- and middle-income countries around the world, despite calls from several heads of state for global solidarity at the start of the pandemic.

The international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres described what we see today in terms of global access to vaccines as “something very different from an image of equality”.

“The big challenge, once you move to the global level, is that every time any country gets a bilateral agreement, it becomes much more difficult to put vaccines in the multilateral pot through COVAX”, Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at the Graduate Institute Geneva, he told CNBC by phone.

In addition to this concern, Moon said: “We currently have no system at the international level, for example, to ensure that you can compare the vaccine’s effectiveness with where there is a variant circulating.”

She cited South Africa as a notable example. Earlier this month, South Africa suspended the launch of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after a study raised questions about its effectiveness against a highly infectious variant first discovered in the country.

“In a rational and ethical world, South Africa would suddenly have access to effective vaccines against its variant and AstraZeneca’s vaccines could be sent to another part of the world where that variant is not in circulation. That would be the rational way to do it, but we simply don’t have agreements for this type of transaction, “said Moon.

“Ideally, this is the kind of thing that happens if you have strong international cooperation, but I think it will actually be a mess,” she continued.

“We are going to have vaccines that expire in some countries when they could be used elsewhere, we are going to have effective vaccines in one place, but they are not in the right place (e) we are going to have excess vaccines serving as safety measures, while in another country people have nothing. “