{"id":265289,"date":"2026-01-03T14:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/265289\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T14:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:46:17","slug":"the-global-race-for-covid-19-vaccines-and-lessons-the-world-needs-to-learn-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/265289\/","title":{"rendered":"The global race for Covid-19 vaccines and lessons the world needs to learn \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fair Doses: Lessons from the Frontlines of Vaccine Equity <\/strong> <\/p>\n

Author:<\/strong> Seth Berkley <\/p>\n

ISBN-13:<\/strong> 978-0520413160<\/p>\n

Publisher:<\/strong> University of California Press <\/p>\n

Guideline Price:<\/strong> \u00a325<\/p>\n

This is the story of the life-or-death race to develop and equitably distribute vaccines during the Covid-19<\/a> pandemic \u2013 as told by the former CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a key public-private global body. <\/p>\n

The account is part memoir, part wider history, and written in a style reflecting the urgency of the time. The author, as head of an organisation that has vaccinated more than half the world\u2019s children, saving some 14 million lives, is well placed to tell the tale. <\/p>\n

There are some policy prescriptions offered, based on hard lessons learned. In advance of the next \u2018big one\u2019, we can only hope governments around the world are taking note. <\/p>\n

To his credit, the author doesn\u2019t assume readers\u2019 scientific knowledge and explains basic vaccine science for non-experts. <\/p>\n

Aside from Covid-19, the book<\/a> covers episodes of vaccine success such as the elimination of smallpox \u2013 officially declared eradicated in 1980 – to the ongoing failure to routinely immunise in the Global South. <\/p>\n

The political, social and ethical challenges for organisations and people involved in global vaccine interventions are illuminated by personal anecdotes from war zones, clinics and boardrooms, with readers brought into moments of triumph and frustration.<\/p>\n

Developing new vaccines is never easy. It can cost anywhere between \u20ac200 million to \u20ac2 billion, and takes, on average, 15 years. In some cases, like HIV AIDS, there is still no fully effective vaccine despite decades of effort. <\/p>\n

The formation of COVAX, or the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access, was essential to defeating the virus, but, despite this, its efforts were resisted by intense \u2018vaccine nationalism\u2019 among rich countries keen to see their citizens jump the vaccine queue. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brexit \u2018tensions\u2019 contributed to disconnect between London and Dublin\u2019s Covid-19 responsesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s passion for vaccine equity is clear, and he gives a compelling account of all the factors at play that ensured poorer countries were last in line when it came to an all-out scramble for life-saving medicines in the midst of pandemic panic. <\/p>\n

Those factors include the profit motivation of pharmaceutical companies, the short-termism of wealthy governments and the complex logistics of delivering doses to far-flung areas. <\/p>\n

This book\u2019s central message is that while vaccines can save millions of lives, without political courage and global cooperation, they can never reach their full potential to help humanity. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Closing schools in Covid pandemic had \u2018hugely detrimental effect\u2019, says Mike RyanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fair Doses: Lessons from the Frontlines of Vaccine Equity Author: Seth Berkley ISBN-13: 978-0520413160 Publisher: University of California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[1879,64,18,135,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-265289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-book-reviews","9":"tag-covid-19","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115831713570639530","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}