Stupor in vaccine production: Bangladesh inhibited?

As the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, becomes a household name, with infection rates surging higher than ever before, attention is necessarily on how well countries in South Asia are bracing the new wave, especially in view of their inadequacies revealed in April-June 2021. Zooming into Bangladesh, the second wave of the pandemic that hit the country last year followed by the attack of the Delta variant, confronted it with the internal vaccine crisis and an external ‘challenge’ to its autonomy. As the promised vaccine imports suddenly stopped from India, Bangladesh was compelled to acquire vaccines from other donor countries. While China rose enthusiastically to Bangladesh’s assistance, it also treated the situation as an opportunity to push forth its own agenda of preventing the latter from joining what it deemed to be ‘anti-China’ camps. Therefore, its gift of 500,000 Sinopharm doses to Bangladesh was followed by China’s ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jimming’s warning that bilateral ties would be damaged if Bangladesh joined the Quad alliance. Naturally affronted by such coercive statements, Bangladesh made a statement reasserting its sovereignty. But it could not refuse the doses, given the stark crisis and conducive bilateral ties. Overcoming the situation had certainly been a test of Bangladesh’s diplomatic prowess, but it also revealed the severe need for domestic vaccine production.

While China rose enthusiastically to Bangladesh’s assistance, it also treated the situation as an opportunity to push forth its own agenda of preventing the latter from joining what it deemed to be ‘anti-China’ camps.

Indeed earlier last year, in February 2021, addressing a virtual programme marking the laying of the foundation stone of Kumudini International Institute of Medical Sciences and Cancer Research in Narayanganj, Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had already stressed on the need for more research in medical science as its present scope in the country remains limited. Naturally to cope with the pandemic, Bangladesh was depending entirely on its bilateral relations to secure vaccines for its burgeoning population. However, the lesson of the second wave’s vaccine crisis seemed to have propelled the country to embark on adopting rapid measures to bolster its domestic production system, a quick review of which is in order. As was expected, in June 2021, Bangladesh media houses reported the prospect of the country signing an agreement with South Korea to set up an international standard institute for producing COVID-19 and other vaccines. Prime Minister Hasina stated that government to government talks were going on for the necessary transfer of technology. The capacity of three firms: Incepta Pharmaceuticals, Popular Pharmaceuticals, and Healthcare Pharmaceuticals had also been assessed for the production of COVID vaccines.

Prime Minister Hasina stated that government to government talks were going on for the necessary transfer of technology.

The Prime Minister also divulged that Bangladesh’s first homegrown vaccine—appropriately named Bangavax, developed by Globe Biotech Ltd. was at the third stage of clinical trial. This announcement was a testament to Bangladesh’s realisation of the urgency for indigenous vaccines, as previously there had been a long delay in receiving an approval for conducting its trials from the regulatory authorities. Keeping up this pace, Bangavax received the approval for human trials from the Bangladesh Medical Research Council in November 2021. According to Globe Biotech, this single dose vaccine would be cheaper than other vaccines that are available in the Bangladesh market. However, two months since, the reports of the human trial are yet to become available in the public domain, and Bangavax is still not in use, keeping the country dependent on foreign vaccine supply. Furthermore, the progress on the Bangladesh-South Korea proposed agreement to set up the vaccine institute is also unknown. In another attempt to engage in vaccine production, Bangladesh and Russia agreed to enter into co-production of the latter’s Sputnik V COVID vaccine in Bangladesh, apart from importing the jabs. According to last media reports on this issue, in July 2021, Foreign minister AK Abdul Momen, “things were at a final stage”. No new developments have also been reported on this spectrum ever since. Meanwhile in August 2021, the Government of Bangladesh had also signed a tripartite MoU, with China National Pharmaceutical Group Company Limited and Incepta Pharmaceuticals Limited, to ascertain domestic manufacturing of the Sinopharm doses. According to it, the involved parties agreed to produce 5 million doses of Sinopharm, with the raw materials supplied by Incepta and the actual manufacturing by the Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Company Limited. Incepta, however, retained the right over other parts of the production such as bottling, labelling, and finishing. On production, the Government of Bangladesh would purchase these vaccines and administer them to its citizens free of charge. While this attempt was certainly to be appreciated as such collaboration was targeted to reduce the cost of the overall vaccine and also expedite the country’s efforts to produce viable vaccines, there is a flaw in the plan. In the terms of the MoU, there is a dearth of clarity on technology transfer from China to Bangladesh.

The involved parties agreed to produce 5 million doses of Sinopharm, with the raw materials supplied by Incepta and the actual manufacturing by the Beijing Bio-Institute of Biological Products Company Limited.

In this regard it is important to note that according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), “inequitable global distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine will burden LMICs most, resulting in a catastrophic moral failure”. Such a possibility thus underlines the crucial need for technology sharing with the manufacturers in the Low-To-Middle Income Countries (LMICs) such as Bangladesh, to allow vaccines to be produced locally complementing foreign supply. It may, therefore, be observed that although Bangladesh undertook a range of measures to enhance domestic production of vaccines, its efforts have not yielded the desired results. A primary reason why domestic production of vaccines in Bangladesh has not taken off with alacrity is that the proposal submitted by India and South Africa to the World Trade Organisation for a temporary waiver of certain provisions of the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), for developing countries to manufacture their own COVID vaccines, is yet to be accepted. The agenda of it was to ascertain that intellectual property rights such as patents, industrial designs, copyright, and protection of undisclosed information do not hinder timely access to affordable healthcare including vaccines or limit research, development, manufacturing, and supply of medical products needed to combat COVID-19. Bangladesh has claimed that it can manufacture a million COVID doses a year, if provided with the right technology. But although, “patent waivers will be critical in the efforts to manufacture generic and cheaper versions of the COVID-19 vaccines, this is only the initial step. Most important is the transfer of know-how and technology,” argues Fahmida Khatun, a leading Bangladeshi economist. Indeed, Bangladesh has claimed that it can manufacture a million COVID doses a year, if provided with the right technology. But countries are as yet reluctant to share their know-how, which largely explains the country’s stagnating collaborations in this regard. In dealing with the latest wave of the pandemic, therefore, the country continues to rely categorically on foreign vaccine supply bilaterally and through COVAX. As Omicron is gradually replacing Delta in Bangladesh, there has been a huge spike in infections with less than 40 percent of the country’s population fully vaccinated. As the virus mutates into different variants, it cannot be predicted that there will not be another vaccine crisis in future. In such circumstances, if the country is to avoid another desperate search for vaccine supply, baring itself in the process to coercive innuendos, the critical need to ramp up its home production of vaccines cannot be over-emphasised. But, to achieve this, international cooperation coupled with the government’s own rigour is essential.

• Neighbourhood
• Healthcare
• India
• Neighbourhood
• Bangladesh
• China
• Coronavirus
• COVID-19
• Delta variant
• omicron variant
• Sheikh Hasina
• vaccine crisis
• vaccine production
• WHO

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