The geophysical dimension of the race around the covid vaccine

Prepared by: Halim Bouamri – Holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations – University of Mentouri in Constantine 

• Arab Democratic Center

As soon as the outbreak of the Corona virus “Covid 19” expanded until it became more threatening to humanity, and the World Health Organization classified it as a “pandemic” on March 11, 2020, then the world entered an open health war in which the vaccine is the weapon to contain the pandemic and a tool for epidemic deterrence and preservation. On global health security.

So the world powers entered into a competition over the issue of anti-Covid 19 vaccines in order to rid humanity of the epidemic threat that threatens it, but the control of national interests over pluralism and international cooperation, which the World Health Organization calls for, made the race towards the vaccine a medical and geopolitical issue at the same time because it It was included in the supreme policy determinants of countries. The issues of prestige, competition and “soft power” pushed the global powers to find a new arena for competition and a display of scientific superiority instead of collective action.

In order to understand the raging competition for the development of vaccines to confront the pandemic and the non-traditional threats to the national and international security of countries as well, we discuss in this study the problem of explaining the international competition over the discovery of the Covid 19 vaccine? And are the international units in a state of competition to find a vaccine against Covid 19, or are they in a state of cooperation? What is the geopolitical position of the Covid 19 vaccine in the framework of international relations?

• Theoretical frameworks of health security in international relations:

The struggle of countries with the Corona virus has become a reflection moment in the course of the world and a pivotal stage in modern history, and the problem of health security as a result of this epidemic again raises the role of the technological force and knowledge power factor in facing non-traditional threats that affect the environment, health and others, so that this factor presents itself. Strongly at the present time as an inevitable option for survival and self-imposition within the system of international relations.

The status of the concept of “health security” was strengthened when it was included in the human development report issued by the United Nations Development Program for the year 1994, as one of the pillars of the modern concept of “human security” termed at that time, as the report discussed the need to expand and deepen the concept of security and its transition From the traditional understanding based on the centrality of the state to a broader and deeper human understanding based on the centrality of the people . The report emphasized at the time that the basic unit of analysis for the concept of human security is ” people ” instead of “the state “, in the context of the serious challenges facing the security of individuals. The report discussed the issue of human security, which must be expanded to include the threats and risks inherent in seven areas, one of which is what has come to be known asHealth security . In the same context, the historic meeting of the UN Security Council in the year 2000 constitutes a milestone in how to deal with diseases, as the Council declared for the first time that HIV / AIDS has become a threat emanating from the health field to stability and security. Thus, a shift in security concepts has taken place to accommodate health threats due to diseases as being among the concerns of international, national and human security. This shift was reflected to leave its effects in many international studies in general and security studies in particular. However, despite the growing academic, scientific and political interest in health and security issues, the term health security still lacks a common and general definition.

The concept of public health from a new perspective is linked to international security in light of the spread of transnational diseases, as is the case in HIV / AIDS, which has been classified as a threat to the international peace, after which the World Health Organization moves to classify diseases according to their danger to global health security.

The “Global Health Security Index” initiative is one of the most important initiatives in this field, especially as it was jointly founded with the UN Security Council and the World Health Organization. In the opinion of Dr.  Abdel Aziz Aghiz  an epidemiologist, this initiative concluded with assessing the severity of diseases according to six main determinants: prevention of emergence, detection and international reporting, the extent of rapid response, the strength of the health system based on an effective health infrastructure, the ability to adhere to international standards, and the ability Nations to confront biological threats. But in 2019, about 60% of the world would not have a high capacity or readiness to contain disease.

On the international level, Dr.  Abdulaziz Akaziz  indicated that global health security includes three pillars, which include looking at communicable and infectious diseases that are cross-border, looking at the scenarios for the use of biological and chemical weapons, and focusing on regional conflicts and their impact on the health situation.

• Theories explaining the conflict and cooperation around the discovery of the Covid 19 vaccine:

A / Realistic theory vision:

The issue of conflict is the salient feature of the realist theory as it considers that relations between states are relations of clash and differences, and that cooperation between states will increase the chances of conflict. Therefore, states must not trust other units, and that individuals compete for something without realizing it and without the pursuit of one of them. To prevent the other from reaching his goals, but it may become a struggle when someone tries to support his position.

B / the vision of liberal theory:

Liberalism rejects what the realist school owners say that international relations are based on conflict and competition. It is a school that believes in peace even as it refuses to solve the conflict through war and believes that international law is the ideal framework that controls the behavior of states. Just to glorify her words without indifference and their example in that is the European Union where states have ceded some of their power in favor of a supreme institution.

The purpose that the state is looking for is its interests, but within an ethical and legal framework, it is not permissible for the state to perform an act that violates the law, even if that action achieves its own interests.

As for relations between states, the liberals stress the imposition of cooperation by creating a general atmosphere. They emphasize the economic importance in contrast to the realistic perspective, and the liberal current emphasizes in its institutional component a formula for promoting international cooperation by creating international institutions based on interdependence.

• The world’s arsenal of vaccines against corona virus:

A / Sputnik at:

Russian President Putin announced the registration of the first vaccine against the Corona virus in the world, and according to the official website of the vaccine, it was registered by the Russian Ministry of Health on August 11, 2020, to become the first registered vaccine against the emerging corona virus.

The vaccine was called “Sputnik V”, in honor of the first Soviet space satellite launched in 1957 during the period of the space race, which was an important part of the ideological, technical and cultural rivalry during  the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States.

B / Pfizer-Biontech:

Developed and produced by the German  company  Biontech and the American Pfizer , the American company Pfizer announced on November 18, 2020 that the effectiveness of the vaccine, which it developed in cooperation with the German “Biontech”, reached 95%. The Biontec and Pfizer vaccine against the Coronavirus has become the first vaccine to obtain approval from the World Health Organization for use in emergency situations since the start of the outbreak, and the United Kingdom was the  first country to give the green light to the American-German vaccine Biontech and Pfizer,   and on December 08, 2020, it launched a vaccination campaign that included about 950 A thousand people received the first dose of the vaccine until December 27, 2020, and on December 11, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a license for emergency use of the Pfizer Bionic vaccine, becoming the first drug to obtain permission to use in the United States.

The Pfizer Bionic vaccine presents more complex logistical challenges, as it must be stored at around -70 ° C and lasts only five days in the refrigerator.

C – Moderna :

The American biotechnology company   Moderna is working on its development and production, and the company announced that its experimental vaccine for the prevention of Covid 19 is effective at 94.5%, it has become Moderna’s vaccine for the prevention of the second Corona virus, which obtained an emergency use license from the US Food and Drug Administration since December 18, 2020, after The administration announced its approval of it a week after its approval of the emergency use of the vaccine company Pfizer and Biontech, and the European Union approved, through the European  Medicines  Agency , the use of the American Moderna vaccine against Coronavirus, in member states on January 06, 2021.

Moderna vaccine can be stored at temperatures of -20 ° C for up to 6 months, and in refrigerator temperatures from 2-8 ° C for up to 30 days. It can also be kept at room temperature for up to 12 hours.

D / Oxford – AstraZeneca:

The University of Oxford worked   with the  British-Swedish company  AstraZeneca to develop and produce it, and it was approved by the Medicines Regulatory Authority in India on January 03, 2021 after Britain and Argentina, and it is the second vaccine licensed by the British Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency after the Biontec and Pfizer vaccine, which is distributed in Britain since 08 December 2020.

The British laboratory announced in November, upon unveiling the interim results of clinical trials, that the vaccine was an average of 70% effective, as opposed to more than 90% for the Biontech, Pfizer and Moderna vaccine.

The vaccine that is already distributed in the UK and which experts believe will likely be approved by European regulators after that, can be kept at normal refrigerator temperatures for at least 6 months, which benefits countries not equipped to handle additional demands. For cold chain storage such as Argentina, El Salvador, India, Mexico, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Philippines, Nepal, Brazil and Sri Lanka.

 F / Sinopharm  :

On December 31, 2020, China agreed to use a vaccine to prevent Covid 19 disease developed by a unit of the state-owned Sinopharm Corporation. Sinopharma laboratories announced that their vaccines  against Covid 19 are 79% effective, which is less than those announced by its American competitors, Pfizer and Moderna.

Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Turkey and the Philippines granted the vaccine emergency approval, while the UAE granted it the final approval.

A Chinese vaccine could give hope to developing and poor countries that cannot afford Western vaccine storage.

H / Johnson & Johnson  :

A vaccine developed by  Janssen Pharmaceuticals   and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center , which obtained a US Food and Drug Administration license for emergency use at the end of February 2021, and the European Medicines Agency agreed on March 11, 2021 to use the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine to become the fourth vaccine to get the green light within the Union The European Union, and it will arrive in the countries of the Union in April 2021, and the effectiveness of this vaccine is estimated at 66% according to the results of clinical trials, and the vaccine is easier to store, as it can be stored in the regular refrigerator, unlike the very cold conditions required for some other vaccines.

• Motives and considerations for creating a vaccine:

The scientific laboratories working to find a vaccine that  would allow the containment of the Corona virus  around the world  benefited  from the huge public financial support for the purpose of research and development for these vaccines as well as to increase production capacities, with the aim of meeting the enormous needs of global demand, which created an important new competition arena witnessed by the whole world and monitors its results and developments from Closely, because the repercussions of finding a successful vaccine against the virus will be immediate and affect the whole world.

According to Pascal Boniface, director of the  Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris, this strategic rivalry smells like the Cold War. The fact that Russia called its vaccine “Sputnik” is not a coincidence, but rather reminds of the moment of the launch of the satellite Sputnik, when the Russians had put into orbit their own missile in 1957, which astonished the Americans, who for a moment believed that the Soviet Union had strategically downgraded them.

This was embodied after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that his country had developed the first vaccine against the emerging corona virus, and a storm of criticism and skepticism erupted in this Russian announcement, as German Minister of Health Jens Young considered that the Russian vaccine had not been adequately tested, and the American Health Minister Alex Azar questioned In the Russian vaccine, he said that the data of the first trials in Russia had not been disclosed, considering that they were not transparent, and French Health Minister Olivier Ferrand stated that this Russian vaccine should not be trusted.

And the international competition to search for the development of an anti-corona virus vaccine has moved to piracy and stealing information from researchers, and the National Cyber ​​Security Center NCSC accused the “Cozy Bears” group, also called “APT” ( 29 (APT is associated with the Russian Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service, targeting British, American and Canadian organizations working to find a vaccine to combat the pandemic, and the US authorities have been  charged with similar accusations to China, “said FBI Director Chris Ray on September 24, 2020:               “ At this moment in particular, China is working to penetrate health care institutions and US pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions that conduct basic research Kovid -19 . “ .  

What made the race towards a Corona vaccine reshape the balance between global powers and their influence.

A / Political motives :

• China :

China is striving to redefine itself as a technological superpower that has controlled the epidemic and started to recover from it economically, at a time when the United States is facing difficulties in containing it, and changing the narrative that a market for selling live wild animals as food in Wuhan was the potential center for the spread of the epidemic, because China is aware of the extent of the damage. Which the Corona virus has inflicted on its reputation, and it wants to benefit from the publication of its vaccine to bypass criticism from abroad by trying to hide the issue of the spread of the virus, because the success of the vaccine and empowering the people of the world with it may help people forget Beijing’s handling of the epidemic when it first appeared.

China aims to expand the “healthy Silk Road”, which forms part of the “Belt and Road Initiative” throughout the developing world, and is a huge investment in infrastructure in more than 100 countries, through which it hopes to increase the volume of China’s foreign trade in global trade.

China is already using the lure of vaccines for more realistic strategic purposes to advance its foreign policy in what has become known as “vaccine diplomacy.”

Whereas, China is seeking, through the vaccine, to gain the friendship of Islamic countries, which can help reduce international criticism regarding the persecution of the Muslim Uyghur minority. Chinese leaders have made similar offers to countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South Asia, regions where Beijing has sought to expand its influence.

” We pledge that once the development of a vaccine is completed in China, African countries will be among the first to benefit, ” the Chinese president said at a meeting of African leaders in June 2020 . Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised that China will provide loans of one billion dollars to Latin American and Caribbean countries to obtain the  Covid 19 vaccine .

Also, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised in his speech to the World Health  Assembly  , May 18 , 2020,   that his country would treat its vaccines as a global public good and not a Chinese monopoly. This gives a strong indication of the rise of China as a scientific leader in a new world order, during the post-epidemic phase, so that Beijing was able to take full advantage of the health crisis by filling the void left by the West, especially in developing countries.

• United States of America:

Trump used the outgoing US president the Covid 19 vaccine for his election campaign and promised to vaccinate Americans first, considering that the country has become the largest global focus of the outbreak of Covid 19 disease, as President Trump offered the German company CureVac, which came close to finding a vaccine for the Corona virus, one billion dollars to obtain Exclusive rights in order to ensure the vaccine for his country first.

Corona virus vaccines have entered the line of the presidential election campaign in the United States and on September 16, 2020, US President Donald Trump confirmed that the largest economy in the world will receive the vaccine in October 2020 and will be widely distributed to the population, and former US President Donald Trump issued a decree giving priority to vaccinating citizens Americans before exporting the vaccine to other countries.

While the US President-elect Joe Biden set a goal of giving Americans 100 million doses of vaccination against the Corona virus in the percent of his first day in office, which is an essential part of his plan to combat the pandemic.

And the United States has put itself in a difficult position diplomatically, because it will not reap many geopolitical gains by upholding it only in the national interest and ignoring international cooperation in combating the pandemic, given that Trump has explicitly adopted the approach of impoverishing other countries with regard to the Covid 19 virus, and this will cost Washington has a geopolitical price for failing to show that it can stimulate collective action to meet the world’s most pressing challenge.

But although the United States government, motivated by the extreme nationalism of President Donald Trump in the field of vaccines, has often ignored multilateral efforts to secure and distribute vaccines worldwide, this does not mean that Washington is completely absent from these endeavors and the companies that are based in the United States have agreed. It has provided some billions of doses of the vaccine, which will be necessary to protect the population around the world. In addition, US charities, led by the “Gates Foundation”, are helping to fund this effort.

• Russia:

President Putin’s announcement of the anti-corona virus vaccine is part of his desire for Russia to return to the center of international attention through the scientific and political battle over the Corona virus that is being fought mainly between the United States and China.

Vladimir Putin wanted to prove that Russia remains an important country in terms of scientific power in the world, so his message was directed to the world, but also targeted the Russian interior in the vaccine race and this is because of the importance of strengthening the Russian national element by showing that Russian scientists are the best in the world and can be trusted. By producing an anti-Coronavirus vaccine safe and effective to the extent that the political elites in Russia did not hesitate to vaccinate it, which made the Western world put Russia on the record of criticism and considered it a Russian propaganda rather than a scientific discovery.

Moscow also used the Sputnik vaccine as part of its foreign policy tools in projecting its power on the world stage and returning Russia to the areas of influence of the Soviet Union, including the countries of the African continent that were ruled by socialist and communist governments. Russia provided 300 million doses of Sputnik vaccine to African countries and proposed a financing package to obtain Vaccines in Africa led by the African Union.

The challenge is to establish Russia as a leading scientific and technological power in the world, alongside China and the United States. But if the Russian vaccine succeeds, it will be a defining moment similar to what happened in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched ” Sputnik 1″  to become the first  satellite orbiting the Earth, at that time the Russian Federation was behind the United States in the field of space technology, but the launch of the Russian satellite succeeded in introducing suspicion. For the Americans, and it created a feeling that their country had lagged behind in the space race, and the shock was great in the United States until the New York Times spoke about “Pearl Harbor Technology” and “Sputnik Night” convinced the world that the Soviet Union made a step ahead of the United States, and this is exactly what is happening. On the race to the vaccine against COVID-19

• European Union :

The announcement of the Pasteur Institute and the Sanofi company in France that they will give up work on a vaccine project against the Corona virus after the first tests showed that its effectiveness is less than expected than the effectiveness of other vaccines used against the epidemic, a scientific failure in one of the world’s most pioneering countries in scientific research, and it showed The countries of the European Union as a whole have their limitations to the great powers competing over the discovery of the expected vaccine.

The countries of the European Union appeared behind major world powers such as China, the United States and Russia in the race to discover an anti-Coronavirus vaccine, this retreat was exploited by China to conclude contracts to market the Chinese vaccine in European countries such as Serbia and Hungary in order to create strategic ties linked to its Silk Road project in Its European part.

In order to counter the Russian and Chinese vaccine diplomacy, the European Parliament intends to assist the countries of the Union and its neighboring countries in achieving sufficiency of the vaccine, by allocating a budget of 580 million euros to stop the expansion of the great powers within the Union.

B / Economic benefits:

Global availability of vaccines is a humanitarian imperative as it will reduce the massive loss of life and help control the pandemic as large parts of the world are still afflicted by the epidemic. It is also an important economic necessity, because comprehensive vaccination will avoid the global economy from recession and push the direction of the desired economic recovery. In addition, there is a great economic necessity, because whoever achieves the lead in the race to reach the vaccine will enable drug manufacturers to earn billions of dollars from selling their vaccines, and this has already prompted many Western countries to invest heavily in pre-orders in order to obtain a quantity. The necessary doses for everyone, so rich countries took the initiative to produce the vaccine, taking advantage of their economic and scientific advantage for that.

The vaccine market  :

While most of the reports on Covid 19 vaccines have focused largely on their effectiveness ratios, the cost remains a disincentive in order to immunize the world against the Coronavirus and help return to normal life. Many countries used taxpayers’ money to purchase wholesale doses with the intention of distributing vaccines to their citizens free of charge. However, this is not an option available to all countries due to competition and given the financial and economic stakes involved in the acquisition of the vaccine, so it is expected that cheaper vaccines will play a decisive role in ending the epidemic in poor and remote areas of the world.

This table monitors the prices of the 6 closest coronavirus vaccines being developed and distributed around the world:

Source  (Statista): Statista is a German company   specializing in market and consumer data, updated December 01, 2020

• The race to buy :

After granting the final licenses for the vaccines that announced the success of their clinical trials, and putting them on the global market, approximately 10 billion doses have been reserved around the world according to the data of the Duke University Statistics Center, and many rich countries have already submitted large orders for vaccines to consider the sovereignty of the national interest, in addition to To secure about one billion vaccine doses within the framework of the WHO Kovacs initiative to help poor countries, according to the following table:

Source: Center for Global Health Innovation at Duke University for the USA, update March 19, 2021

And this is a table that monitors the distribution of anti-corona virus vaccines around the world, the distribution includes the determinants of cost, transportation, cooling and storage, as well as political alliances:

 Source   : The New York Times, Where is Each Vaccine Used ?, Update March 27, 2021

Kovacs Transcending individualism in order to activate the principle of international solidarity:

• Reflection of individuality :

On December 08, 2020, Britain began giving the Pfizer Biontec anti-corona virus vaccine to the most vulnerable people, thus becoming the first Western country to publish a large-scale vaccination program, and by the end of January 2021 it had given more than 51 million doses of the emerging anti-corona vaccines all over the world, . And the Zionist entity led the vaccination race in terms of the percentage of the population who received the vaccine, as more than a quarter of its citizens received the vaccine, or 2.43 million people.

Rich countries in Europe, North America, the Gulf and China have acquired the most vaccines so far. Only 11 of the 61 countries that started vaccination campaigns used 90% of the doses administered.

And the International Vaccine Monitoring Authority, ‘the People’s Vaccine Alliance,’ stated that rich countries have collected enough doses of the Coronavirus vaccine to vaccinate their residents three times, while poor countries are falling behind in obtaining anti-virus vaccines.

According to the People’s Vaccine Alliance, 67 poor countries will only be able to vaccinate one in 10 people next year. On the other hand, rich countries stocked a surplus of vaccines to ensure that their people are protected from the virus, and as a result of this competition only 14% of the world’s population owns more than half of the vaccine doses, and added that 96% of the Pfizer Bionic vaccine doses were bought by the rich countries, and so is the Moderna vaccine. Whose experiments showed a high rate of effectiveness, as Canada topped the list of purchasing enough doses to vaccinate each of its citizens five times.

That is why the President of South Africa, “Cyril Ramaphosa,” appealed to the rich countries to stop stockpiling more of the Corona vaccines that they had requested, but did not need immediately, and said: “The rich countries in the world have bought large quantities of vaccines … so that some countries have bought four times what their people need. … which leads to the exclusion of other countries … We will not all be safe if one country is able to vaccinate its own population and no other country is able to do so .

He added: “African countries want to have access to vaccines as fast as the other countries .”

The competition between countries to obtain shipments of vaccines across the world is the core of the realistic theory, as the concept of international solidarity, collective responsibility and joint action, which is supposed to be the basis for confronting a global pandemic threatening international peace and security, is in favor of the concept of international selfishness, especially on the part of the major countries.

• Solidarity work is a continuation of international cooperation:

The Corona virus, which has become a great danger to the countries of the world, has aroused Western countries ’awareness of the limits of their individual policies, with which it has become mandatory for states’ solidarity to eradicate the virus collectively. Western countries gradually turned to greater cooperation, especially through the Kovacs program , which is a mechanism. An international outbreak launched by the World Health Organization, the European Commission and France in April 2020 echoed this epidemic. Bringing together governments, global health organizations, manufacturers, scientists, the private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.                    

The Kovacs initiative is the only real global solution to this epidemic because it is the only effort to ensure that people around the world have access to vaccines against Coronavirus 19 as soon as they are available, regardless of their wealth, and the Kovacs program aims to work as a platform that supports research, development and manufacture of a wide range of vaccines. Covid-19 candidates, and negotiating their prices so that all participating countries, regardless of income levels, have equal opportunities to obtain these vaccines once they are developed. The primary goal is to provide two billion doses by the end of 2021, so the main goal of the program is to provide the vaccine as a priority for countries that cannot purchase the vaccine.

The Cocavs mechanism concerned with the equitable distribution of vaccines against the Coronavirus, especially to poor countries, has published a list of the first countries that will receive vaccines and the quantity they will receive in the first half of 2021.

And supply of doses has already started as part of a round of allocations, as India,  Ghana and  Côte d’Ivoire received doses of the Serology Institute in India. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire began vaccination campaigns  with these doses.

Kovacs, run by the World Health Organization and the Gavi Vaccine Alliance, one of the organizations working to ensure the supply of poor countries, has set a goal of distributing sufficient doses to vaccinate 20% of the population of the participating countries by the end of 2021.

Within the framework of strengthening international cooperation, the Algerian President gave his instructions to share part of the Corona vaccines that Algeria had acquired with Tunisia as soon as it received the payment that would arrive in response to the Tunisian request and a commitment by Algeria to the requirements of the existing brotherhood between the two countries and an expression of the strength of the existing relations between  Tunisia and Algeria .

Whether the strategic interests in achieving global immunity or a cooperative decision are in the hands of the countries of the world, the international motives behind this cooperation remain based on the liberal approach that tends to adopt the idea of ​​global citizenship and the sharing of the common destiny of human beings, and that the absence of central authority does not mean conflict, which is the position that must be taken To counter the Coronavirus, the Kovacs initiative showed that international cooperation is possible even when it comes to distributing scarce and needed resources.

The competition between the United States of America, China and Russia over the production of a vaccine against the Coronavirus, which has become a great danger to the countries of the world, reflected the realization of the leaders and governments of the major world powers on the importance of the issue of expediting the production of an effective vaccine against the virus as a geopolitical achievement that would return them to the symbolic sites and economic advantages. The process of continuous competition between the major powers accelerated the global power race, but the combined efforts of the international community of solidarity, cooperation and exchange of information on an unprecedented global scale in order to save humanity and defend humanity helped activate international solidarity in order to eliminate the virus collectively, especially Through the Kovacs program.

So in the issue of the struggle over the Coronavirus vaccine, there is competition and cooperation at the same time, cooperation at the scientific and humanitarian level, and competition at the strategic level , and since major historical crises are often the source of major challenges and major political transformations, let us hope that the international community learns A lesson in terms of its ability to cooperate in confronting contemporary global issues such as environmental threats, for example.

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