The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should lead the mass production of vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the Asian Development Bank’s chief health officer said on Tuesday. “Instead of competing for a limited supply, let’s increase the supply of vaccines. Asean has manufacturing expertise. It is time for Asean to make this decision,” said Dr. Eduardo Banzon of ADB in the course of the Asean Media Forum held online (24/11/2020).
Dr. Eduardo Banzon stressed that ASEAN member states have the capability to provide Covid-19 vaccines as soon as they develop into available. He mentioned Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. He said it was quite unlucky that countries were struggling to acquire supplies of the vaccine, however it was to be expected as natural behavior.
Asian member states are a part of COVAX, a world initiative of 172 countries that goals to work with vaccine manufacturers to make sure equitable access to protected and effective vaccines through advance purchasing arrangements. Countries that can receive a grant from COVAX include the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia and Vietnam. While Thailand, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore are helping to finance the initiative, which goals to purchase an initial 2 billion doses after reports that wealthy countries have already used up greater than half of the overall potential supply of Covid-19 vaccines.
“Rather than competing with the world for limited supply, one way to solve this problem is to increase supply. And we already know that ASEAN is capable of producing. So can ASEAN make it easier for these countries to produce more vaccines for the world and hopefully make additional doses available to ASEAN,” Dr. Banzon said.
“We should sit down around the world, ASEAN should call for this, to increase supply and produce more vaccines. ASEAN has been very good at this. ASEAN should sort of call for it,” he added.
“Europeans actually pooled their money. “Europeans have been making advance payments for vaccines in a way that they have not done as individual countries, except the United Kingdom (UK), the EU has actually… type of come together in an alliance after which jointly entered into an advance purchase commitment,” he said .
Under the COVAX initiative, countries eligible for subsidies can receive doses similar to as much as 20 percent of their population. Dr. Banzon added that ASEAN must also consider establishing an ASEAN center for emerging infectious diseases, in addition to a medical reserve fund.
“This will speed up the exchange of surveillance data and best practices from member countries. “Having something like the CDC (Center for Disease Control) will give us a quick regional response,” he said.
For his part, Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dzung said that member states must help one another in order that the region can recuperate from the economic collapse brought on by the pandemic. “A cohesive and responsive ASEAN can address the challenges we face today and enable us to sustainably recover from the impact of Covid-19 and sustain economic growth,” he said.
