Even before the world has found a COVID-19 vaccine, rich countries have staked their claim to the first doses. Here is what history can teach us about the quest for a fair shot at what remains.
I think they have you do this just to prove you don’t have COVID,” quips the 32-year-old digital marketer, as she passes another landing. Three more flights of stairs to go, not that the marathon runner is showing any signs of strain.
The group eventually arrives at a small waiting room. Black plastic chairs are arranged in a neat socially-distanced square. Despite the weather outside, the windows are open and through them the tops of brownstone office buildings and pink and white apartment blocks shrouded in the morning fog are visible.
“Ventilation,” Porteous explains. The drafts travelling through the windows reduce the risk of transmission for airborne infections such as the novel coronavirus.
South Africa has just come through the country’s first wave of COVID-19. A television in the waiting room plays a local news report featuring the country’s health minister, Zweli Mkhize, speaking about the latest cases. A caption below his image reads: “Mkhize warns against complacency.
The US government has invested at least $11bn in COVID-19 vaccine development, according to US consumer advocacy organisation Public Citizen.
The brand of vaccine nationalism behind Tillis’ proposed legislation is not new. During the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak, high-income countries able to produce vaccines refused to export them until their domestic needs were met, researchers wrote in 2019 in the healthcare journal The Milbank Quarterly.
For a new pandemic, COVID-19 brings with it decidedly old problems when it comes to vaccines – and the world is looking to a decades’ old solution to help.
In other news – Boity Thulo featured on South Africa’s No1 Hip Hop Magazine
Boity Thulo recently graced the cover of Hype SA hip hop magazine – The beautiful rapper stunned on the cover and many Mzansi social media users gushed over her beauty – Speaking about the cover, Boity said that she has wanted to be featured on the magazine for a while now. Learn more
Source: Aljazeera
