The Olympic test for Zero-Covid
🌐 It's not just about China.
VIEW
Analysis and global perspectives in health, development, planet.
Will a wipe-out ever be on the cards?
A three-year-old girl has been paralysed by the wild poliovirus in Malawi, according to media reports last week. No doubt tragic for the family, the news is also a major setback for the global polio eradication campaign less than two years after Africa was declared free of the virus. (WHO Africa + Reuters + Devex + Science + CNN)
This case, and news about pandemic surges in parts of Asia, got me thinking about disease eradication and Covid-19.
Smallpox is the only human disease to have ever been eradicated—which is to say, permanently wiped out from every corner of the earth. (You’ll sometimes hear “eradication” used interchangeably with “elimination”, which is actually wrong: elimination means interrupting the spread of disease in a limited area only.)
It was a historic achievement, and a hard act to follow. Polio is a case in point. The eradication campaign against this viral disease has been running for more than 30 years. Success remains elusive for various reasons, including logistical difficulties of immunisation in conflict zones, and pockets of resistance to accept vaccines in ‘last-mile’ locations, mainly Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the case of Malawi, the infection has been traced back to a strain that was circulating in Pakistan in the autumn of 2019—even with pandemic restrictions for much of the time since then, it somehow managed to reach southeastern Africa.
Vaccination was a hallmark of smallpox eradication. But having an efficacious vaccine wasn’t enough. And here we start seeing some parallels with Covid-19.
In a 2020 editorial Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, laid out a few lessons that can be learned from the history of smallpox eradication to mount a successful Covid vaccination campaign (in a nutshell: the need for universal political commitment, clear and measurable objectives, decentralised public health management, and sustained investment in research). This isn’t to say eradication is the goal for the coronavirus; Horton makes that clear.
Most experts have conceded that the coronavirus is here to stay.
China is the exception—perhaps the last bastion of a zero-Covid policy that others abandoned long ago. Despite being the place where the coronavirus was first spotted, and likely originated, its tough policies have kept numbers low.
But off the back of recent outbreaks in a few provinces, a number of observers see the Winter Olympics as a real test of China’s strategy to crush the virus wherever it pops up. Isolation rules at the Games are strict; admission is controlled; ‘bubbles’ are limiting physical contact in venues and during transport; and travel is discouraged. (Nature + Guardian + BBC)
Is China simply delaying the inevitable—or is it being smart by doing what it takes to stop the virus from getting established? That remains to be seen. And although these debates are often tinged with the geopolitics that colour most coverage of China, especially from US media, the outcome of its zero-Covid policy could have implications for how the rest of the world views the Covid-19 endgame.
As a goal, eradication is often controversial. One of the criticisms is that it sucks away money from other public health priorities for a very, very long time. On the other hand, proponents argue that it’s exactly that kind of singular goal that’s needed to really marshal the funding and political will to tackle important diseases that meet technical criteria for eradication.
There’s already some debate about whether the coronavirus can or should be eradicated. And there are very good reasons to believe that a complete wipe-out is off the cards. But if China succeeds at keeping it at bay—a kind of elimination, you could say—we can expect to see stronger arguments for more ambitious goals for tackling Covid-19 after the pandemic phase ends.
Briefing Highlights
TREND TO WATCH
Antimicrobial resistance is now the leading cause of death worldwide, according to a large study of its impact in over 200 countries. We’ve had plenty of warnings, but this is the loudest so far. This analysis is took in 470 million records, and found that drug-resistant infections were directly responsible for the deaths of almost 1.3 million people in 2019. The death toll was higher than caused by AIDS or malaria, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia suffering the largest number of deaths The key problem is a pipeline of new drugs that’s too small to provide solutions. But the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic leaves no illusions as to what’s possible when pharmaceutical companies have an incentive to act.
UNDER THE RADAR
Amnesty International has labelled Israel an ‘apartheid’ state for its treatment of Palestinians, which it says amounts to “a system of oppression and domination”. Human rights groups have made similar assessments in the past, but this time Israel’s government took a harsher stance against the accusations—and the context for this reaction is a growing movement to change the narrative surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Joseph Krauss writing for PBS.
Based on Briefings published February 15 + February 8.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Countries face new global Covid divide on opening up or staying closed - WaPo
Pandemics disable people — the history lesson that policymakers ignore - Laura Spinney in Nature
ENVIRONMENT
Ethiopia’s Blue Nile mega-dam starts generating electricity - FT
Mekong drought enters fourth year; worst conditions in 60 years - VOA
Senegal: As waste rises, so does recycling - NYT
CLIMATE & ENERGY
Are climate goals compatible with reducing poverty? - Economist
In Southeast Asia, decades-long deals stymie shift away from coal - Al Jazeera
Climate pledges from top companies crumble under scrutiny - Nature + BBC
HEALTH
Somali doctors open war-scarred nation's only public blood bank – Reuters
Bird flu surge a threat to human health, experts warn - Telegraph
SOCIETY
Cambodia's internet gateway raises fears of China-style surveillance - TRF
Online “auctions” of women are just the latest attacks on Muslims in India - MIT Tech Review
BRIGHTER NEWS
How Brazil survived its president’s vaccine skepticism and battled misinformation – Vox + FT
Myanmar’s first literary work since coup reveals ‘courage and altruism’ of writers - Guardian
OSCAR WORTHY
The story of a spirited Indian newspaper run by rural Dalit women is an Oscar nominee - Quartz India
Flee: inside the film about a Kabul boy who finds happiness, cats and a husband in Denmark - Guardian
From the week’s global soundtrack 🌐
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