The jolly season is not as jolly this time. While we can still put the ‘gulbiena’ in the dark and maybe take out a few decorations, we know that we will not be sharing our homes as we did last year. With the hundred plus daily cases and the victims list adding up, most of us have to question the wisdom of visiting loved ones during this period. So while usually Christmas is a time to dream of new things, a better year, something to add to our lives, this year we will all be yearning for what used to be. It will be a collectively nostalgic Christmas, yearning for the normality that we took for granted until last year.
The festive season remains, however, a time to dare dream. Our dream this year is for the covid-19 vaccine to reach our communities, to start protecting our loved ones and our frontliners. News from the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam seems to be going in that direction.
The pharmaceutical research world is on a full speed race to develop a viable vaccine against covid-19, but while many have hit the headlines with news of vaccine effectiveness, starting from Putin’s version allegedly tested on his own daughter to many other versions with their own pluses and minuses, the stark reality remains that unless any vaccine passes through all the phases of European market authorisation, they will not be allowed for distribution.
The European market authorisation is there to protect us. It has, in fact, done so for decades and ensured both the safety of our health and the stimulus of a well organised market to European research to develop products for use by 500 million plus EU citizens. Europe is indeed a world leader on pharmaceutical research and development. Three of the most promising covid-19 vaccine trials are indeed European projects.
In Malta, as elsewhere, we frequently criticise Europe for lack of action on many fronts. Sometimes we do that with good reason. I for one am critical of a Europe which spreads itself thin on many new areas while missing the opportunity to consolidate the basic acquis, the most important rights that we expect out of our union like free movement. I must say however, that in the present circumstances, Europe is largely living up to expectations on the Covid-19 vaccine.
The European Commission has moved in good time and with tact to sign multiple contracts with pharmaceutical companies developing the Covid-19 vaccine. Five separate contracts were signed for an advance purchasing arrangement securing the priority supply of potentially 500 plus million doses of vaccine. The method used by the European Commission is commendable as it did not choose a winning horse when the race was too early to tell us one, but it signed contracts with five promising projects in their early stages, thereby raising the odds of the European citizens receiving the vaccine as early as possible.
The news from Amsterdam rewards the European Commission’s approach. One of the front-runners for a manufacturing authorisation possibly before Christmas is signatory to one of the Commission’s contracts. The Pfizer/Biontech vaccine is in fact heading the vaccine race with its first of kind messenger RNA system, implanting the human body with the virus DNA to trigger our immunity system.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, but the battle is far from over. To start with, the European Medicines Agency is likely to issue only a one year conditional authorisation for these covid-19 vaccines. This is due to the fact that the authorisation process and the trials were done in a record short-time. The vaccine will need to be monitored closely to ensure its usage longer-term.
We should also do our part in the process. If the expected authorisation materialises before Christmas, we need to be ready with a detailed deployment plan tailored for the particular characteristics of this vaccine. The current mishaps with the seasonal influenza vaccine call for more effort from the authorities to ensure the smoothest deployment of a covid-19 vaccine once it reaches our shores, hopefully in January. Certainly, this is not the easiest of tasks.
A nationwide vaccination starting from the most vulnerable and the frontliners will require a myriad of decisions and operational stamina. Perhaps we should start from more communication efforts, reaching the people in a more systemic fashion and involving a wider cross-section of our representative bodies. The frequent confrontations of government with the medical professions associations are, for instance, not conducive to a smooth return to normality, nor is government’s obstinate refusal to pass its decision-making through the organs of parliamentary democracy involving the opposition.
The covid-19 vaccine should hopefully immunise all of us by the following Christmas. We will, however, not be immune to arrogance in public authority.
Peter Agius, MEP candidate and EU expert
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