A system to ensure the free flow of information is almost always helpful. Reuters/File
Thanks to the Chinese donation, Pakistan will hopefully kick-start a Covid-19 vaccination drive this week, administering half a million doses to public healthcare workers, signalling the beginning of the end of the deadly virus a year after the first case was reported in the country.
A deal to source 10m more doses from China has also been reported. Citing dangers of corruption and a lengthy public procurement process, the government has granted licences to half a dozen private companies to import vaccines. But in the absence of clear pricing policies, confusion clouds the path ahead.
Ilham Tohti & Nathan Law Kwun-chung
COVAX
2020 was a year marked by the devastation of the still raging COVID-19 pandemic, but also by the extraordinary scientific achievement of record fast vaccine development and the prospect of the first pandemic in human history to be ended through vaccination. The risks associated with COVID-19 are unevenly distributed – by age, geographical location, socioeconomic status, and other demographic factors. Some of this unevenness is due to the biology of the virus, but some of it is a consequence of social and political inequalities. With various vaccines now approved and mass vaccination programs underway in a number of countries, these global inequalities and injustices are finding new expression in the unequal distribution of vaccines. This is not helped by the rise of “vaccine nationalism.” A Nobel Peace Prize for work to ensure the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines would send an important signal that international cooperation
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