COVID-19: How Greed, Profit, Super Power Supremacy Battle Are Stifling Vaccine Discovery

President  Rajoelina drinking Covid Organics

Covid Organics from Madagascar

 

 

A world truly united could find a vaccine for coronavirus in no time. Sadly unity is eluding the world when it needed it most.

 

It is understood that people are in business to make money. That said, it is not a surprise that many pharmaceutical companies using cutting edge technology and laboratories are on the race to be the first to discover the vaccine for coronavirus, and profit from the prestige and money that comes with that.

 

Like the companies seeking vaccine for coronavirus, the Super Powers are in a battle to be the country that produces the universally acceptable vaccine. Many of the companies are working in synergy with their government security authorities to ensure that whatever is found is not leaked to the ‘enemies’ or successfully hacked by other countries. A few examples suffice.

 

Recently, the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security of the United States was reportedly said to be preparing to issue a warning that China’s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal American research in the crash effort to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus. The

report said the efforts are part of a surge in cybertheft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic. More than a dozen countries have reportedly redeployed military and intelligence hackers to glean whatever they can about

other nations’ virus responses. Even American allies like South Korea and nations that do not typically stand out for their cyberabilities, like Vietnam, have suddenly redirected their state-run hackers to focus on virus-related information, according to private security firms.

 

A draft of the forthcoming public warning, which officials say is likely to be issued in the days to come, says China is seeking “valuable intellectual property and public health data

through illicit means related to vaccines, treatments and testing.” It focuses on cybertheft and action by “nontraditional actors,” a euphemism for researchers and students the Trump administration says are being activated to steal data

from inside academic and private laboratories.

 

The decision to issue a specific accusation against China’s state-run hacking teams, current and former officials said, is part of a broader deterrent strategy that also involves United States Cyber Command and the National Security Agency. Under legal authorities that President Donald Trump issued nearly two years ago, they have the power to bore deeply into Chinese and other networks to mount proportional counterattacks.

 

While United States is complaining about stealing of coronavirus information from its laboratories by the Chinese, Russians, Iranians and others, it is not telling the world what it has also been doing to steal from other countries. It is therefore unclear exactly what the U.S. has done, if anything, to send a similar shot across the bow to the Chinese hacking groups, including those most closely tied to China’s new Strategic Support Force, its equivalent of Cyber Command, the

Ministry of State Security and other intelligence units.

 

The United States authorities are also warning American firms to exercise extreme caution in safeguarding their research against China and others with a track record of stealing

cutting-edge medical technology. "We are imploring all those research facilities and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that are doing really great research to do everything in their power to protect it," Bill Evanina, the director of

the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview with NPR. "We don't want that company or the research hospital to be the one a year from now, two years from now, identified as having it all stolen before they

finished it," said Evanina, whose center falls under the director of national intelligence. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Britain's National Cyber Security Center recently issued a statement saying hackers are "actively

targeting organisations ... that include healthcare bodies, pharmaceutical companies, academia, medical research organisations, and local government." The statement did not name China or any other country.

 

Reuters  recently reported that hackers linked to Iran tried to break into email accounts at the U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which has a potentially promising drug to treat the COVID-19 virus. Iran denied the report.

 

With the Super Powers in a battle of wits over coronavirus

vaccine, it becomes obvious for African countries to develop home grown drugs to tackle the virus because waiting for the West or China for the solution may cause the continent a lot in human lives, economic and social dislocations. That is why any African solution or potential solution like the Madagascar Covid Organics needs attention from Africans. Good enough, President Muhammadu Buhari has given approval for the drug to be used in the country after certification by NAFDAC and other regulatory pharmaceutical institutions.

 

I have also noticed how the World Health Organisation (WHO) appeared dismissive of the Covid Organics from Madagascar, and that is understandable since the tiny Africa nation is not a major donor to WHO like China, United States and others. Even as we accept the Covid Organics from Madagascar, Nigeria and other African countries must leverage on their herbal and orthodox pharmaceutical experts to discover homegrown solution to coronavirus. This should be done by effectively funding drugs development research. Madagascar has shown the path, Nigeria and other African countries should follow without waiting for validation from the WHO or powerful countries of the North!