Q&A with Dr. Mike & Dr. Maria
(Courtesy of
@dixiegirl1035)
04:24 | Dr. Mike Ryan (response to question):
“It’s fantastic, and for me especially this year we have developed and now potentially deploying an effective vaccine against SARS Co-V2, against COVID-19, but also we've managed to do the same with Ebola for the first time in almost 30 years, and to have a new vaccine and one of the vaccines against Ebola which is built with the same basic approach - it's a viral vector vaccine very similar to some of the candidates for SARS Co-V2, so what we're seeing is huge innovation out there and I think at last innovation that's aimed at the problems that people all over the world face, not just people in wealthy countries but people in poorer countries as well, and I think for me, and there is a way to go, I think Maria is correct, there's a way to go. We’ve likened it to reaching the base camp on Mount Everest but we still have to climb the mountain, so it's a great achievement, but we still have to get there and there are many obstacles to getting there in terms of the ability to produce enough of the vaccine, distribute it fairly, not only deliver it at national level but bring that down to communities, create the demand for the vaccine and deliver that vaccine to each and every individual who actually needs it. That’s not a small task. We’ve been trying to do that for measles for 50 years, we've been trying to do that with polio for 30 years and we haven't quite got there, despite billions of dollars of investment and
huge amounts of effort, so in order for this to be successful, and many people have said this before me, it's not just the vaccines that matter, it's vaccination, it’s getting people vaccinated, so it will be very important that we focus on that delivery part...This is the first time ever in my experience, I think I said this previously at the presser but I think it's important to repeat it, never ever before in the history of science and the history of mankind, have we had a new threat, biologic threat, that we didn't understand, we didn't even know existed. We’ve struggled to respond and contain it, and everyone deserves huge credit for what you individually and personally all have contributed to keeping this virus under some kind of control, protecting those around you, but to drive the innovation needed amongst the public and the private sector, the philanthropic sector, the UN, the academic institutions, and so many others have come together, put aside differences, put aside rivalries and committed to a process that Dr. Tedros started way back last March/April and all make a contribution to delivering on a vaccine, and within 12 months to be in this situation is just incredible, and to do that with equity and access and fairness built in from the beginning, that's also unique, because most of the time, we've seen it with HIV and other drugs, we distribute them unfairly at high prices and eventually a number of years later we get a conscience and we decide “oh maybe poor people should get these“ and that becomes an afterthought. This is a forethought, this has been built in and engineered into this process since the very beginning. Now it won't be perfect, nothing is perfect, but it's the first time in my professional career I‘ve witnessed equity and access built into the system from the moment it began. That is a wonderful aspiration, it's an amazing aspiration, because too many people talk that talk but don't walk that walk and we've tried with our partners to walk that walk. On top of that, again there's a humanitarian buffer built in, which is really aimed at getting to people who may never be reached by governments, people living in non-government-controlled areas in the middle of shooting wars, who may not get access to the national allocation, and again there's a buffer dealing directly with those people, so ourselves and unicef and
unacr and msf and other organizations can have access to a special stock, so even those people who don't have the protection of a government, even those people who live in the most extreme and conflict affected environments in the world, we will be able to get vaccines to them, and again that's to me, as a humanitarian, as someone who works my whole life at that space, that's fantastic, because they're the last people in line in my experience. They’re the people sometimes it takes decades to create equitable access to anything, food even, so now to have this is fanta...I know I’m being very emotional about this, but this means a lot to me, because sometimes we fail in things and we fail but we try, sometimes we don't even try; this time we're really trying, really really really trying, to build in that and all of the agencies involved from the top right down to the bottom are important, in many ways the baton will be handed over over time...we need to develop more vaccines. We shouldn't stop. We need more than these three or four. We need to increase production. We need to pull the price down. We love/need a one dose vaccine because all of the vaccines so far are two doses, so the innovation is not finished. We need the research to continue and we need everyone to support that research. We need everybody to look into their own hearts and see how can they contribute. If you're offered a vaccine, it's not just for you - you represent that new firewall. You’re a tree in the forest - if you don't burn down, the rest of the forest doesn't burn down, so your responsibility in this is not just to yourself, it is to your community. So everyone, before the vaccines arrive and all the arguments start over this holiday period, I’d advise everyone to sit down and find out all they can about vaccination, find out all they can about the benefits, find out all they can about the risks, and make a good decision, but make a decision for you, make it for your family, make it for your community and make it for the world, and remember each and every person is a tree in that forest and you get to choose, and you
should get to choose, but you're also part of a forest, so let us try also over the coming weeks not just think about the technology, but think about the psychology that we need to have to make vaccinations successful.”
like any *old normal* Friday night. I cried seeing this. Just quietly cried in the car on the way to work.
