[COVID-19 Transformation] "Competition Leads to Mutual Destruction, International Cooperation Needed for Vaccine and Treatment Development"

Image source (AP=Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] On December 31 last year, when 27 patients with pneumonia of unknown cause were reported in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) revealed itself to the world.

Sixteen days earlier, a trilateral health ministers' meeting of Korea, China, and Japan was held in Seoul. Park Neung-hoo, Minister of Health and Welfare of Korea; Ma Xiaowei, Director (Minister) of the National Health Commission of China; and Kato Katsunobu, Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, signed the "Revised Joint Action Plan on Infectious Disease Response," which included establishing a hotline (direct communication system) among the heads of disease control organizations of the three countries to strengthen cooperation in case of infectious disease crises. However, when COVID-19 spread, the agreement became useless. The Chinese health minister, whose country saw a rapid increase in confirmed cases at the early stage of the outbreak, was unreachable, Japan imposed entry restrictions on Korea and China, and Korea responded in kind against Japan, resulting in disparate responses among the three countries.

As the novel virus emerged, the world closed borders, restricted movement, and cut off contact with the outside. However, experts in key fields emphasize that "mistrust of other countries and a self-protection mindset centered on one's own country will never win the fight against COVID-19." Peter Lee, Vice President of Microsoft Healthcare in the United States, recalled the speech of former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt at the recent online forum "Global Cooperation Measures to Overcome COVID-19" hosted by KAIST, saying, "Competition is effective to reach a certain level, but cooperation is necessary to survive longer," and stressed the importance of international cooperation to overcome COVID-19.

Cooperation is urgently needed in health care and quarantine, especially in vaccine and treatment development. Experts in wildlife infectious diseases and virus research pointed out that "coronaviruses causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and COVID-19 mutate very severely," and "even if huge costs are spent to develop treatments or vaccines, there is a possibility that the virus will have changed to a completely different nature at that time."

Jerome Kim, Director General of the International Vaccine Institute, also stated, "Research and development of vaccines related to coronaviruses cost between 400 million and 1 billion dollars, but only about 7% of candidates enter clinical stages," and argued, "To overcome uncertainty, manufacturers, regulatory agencies, and the World Health Organization (WHO) must all participate to establish a fund for vaccine development."

Ahanou Behnah, Head of Global Health at the World Economic Forum (WEF), warned against the existing closed competition approach to securing treatments. He emphasized, "To dramatically shorten the usual vaccine development period of more than 18 months, a new approach is needed where all stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers, share information on a joint platform and conduct research, development, and clinical trials together."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.