Editorial | Bring transparency to public-private vaccine pact

The logic of Chris Zacca’s argument that there should be a “whole-country approach” to vaccinating Jamaicans when the island eventually has access to a COVID-19 jab is as obvious as it is unimpeachable. This newspaper is, therefore, on board.

Nonetheless, there must be absolute transparency in the development and execution of the initiative for private interests to source, sell, and administer vaccines. The availability of the drug must be equitable and affordable to all strata of the society. To put it bluntly, there has to be the assurance that rich, private companies will not corner the market for the vaccines – although there is no reason to believe that this would ever be the case – thereby making the drugs accessible primarily to wealthy people or those who have health insurance policies.

There are three good reasons to raise this matter. One is that COVID-19 vaccines, in the economic context of Jamaica, will be expensive on the private market. Second, only about a third of Jamaicans are covered by health insurance, and the majority of these have job-related policies. And with more than 130,000 having lost their jobs because of the pandemic, for many, their life insurance coverage is tenuous.

The third point, which is related to the first, is that even when there are clearly defined mechanisms for the delivery of scarce goods, which will be the case with the COVID-19 vaccines, people with resources are often tempted to jump the queue. Such was the case with the Canadian millionaire couple, Rodney and Ekaterina Baker. The Bakers, residents of Vancouver, British Columbia, chartered a plane to the Yukon Territory in the north to make themselves eligible for the Moderna vaccine intended for a remote First Nations community. They were found out and fined for breaching emergency regulations.

MATTER OF TRANSPARENCY

Which brings us back to the matter of transparency in the vaccine acquisition and distribution programme, including any scheme brokered with the private sector. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has already infected nearly 104 million people around the world, of whom over 2.2 million have died. More than 15,600 of the confirmed infections and over 350 of the deaths are in Jamaica. The global economy, including Jamaica’s, has been thrown into a recession.

The upside is the rapid pace with which scientists, from the springboard of long, ongoing research into coronaviruses, were able to develop vaccines for COVID-19. The negative is the scramble for the first vaccines to reach the market. Rich countries are having the first grabs. But even they are in squabbles as was highlighted by last week’s nasty little quarrel between the European Union (EU) and Britain over the EU’s fleeting ban on the export of the AstraZeneca drug to the UK via Northern Ireland.

Jamaica and other Caribbean countries are to receive vaccines under the World Health Organization-coordinated COVAX initiative, aimed at ensuring global equity in accessing the drugs. These deliveries are to start in February under a second tranche of production. However, recently, there have been question marks over that timetable as the First-World vaccine makers hustle to meet the obligations to rich countries. Other issues, in Jamaica’s case, include the Government’s ability to acquire sufficient vaccines, in a timely manner, to fully immunise between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of the population, which is necessary to halt the spread of the disease. There are the logistics, too, of a mass immunisation programme.

UNIFIED APPROACH

It is against that backdrop that last week’s disclosure of an agreement, or emerging pact, between the private interests on the vaccine project and Mr Zacca’s remarks are significant. Mr Zacca, the CEO of the investment, banking, and insurance conglomerate Sagicor, said: “A successful vaccination deployment programme requires a unified national approach, a whole-country approach, and the mobilisation of all available physical, human, and technology resources, as well as strong marketing and communication skills.”

We agree!

But the public has only these broad contours of the arrangement and the remarks in Parliament by Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton that the private sector’s involvement in the scheme “will not impact or affect the Government’s responsibility to provide a vaccine in a way that is in keeping with universal health access”.

Indeed, we support Minister Tufton’s assertion that there are people who “can afford to pay for it (the vaccine)” and should be encouraged to do so. “... For those who can’t, the public-health system has an obligation to ensure that they get (the drug),” he said. But in this market of scarcity, with people’s health on the line, there must not be rigidities that disenfranchise people.

Further, Dr Tufton’s task force on the roll-out of the vaccines must engage more with Jamaicans on all facets of the programme. Its mobilisation, starting now, should include communicating the science behind the vaccines to counter the negative messages of the conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers, who would undermine the project. There are Jamaican scientists, at home and abroad, who can help on this front.