The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsCOVID-19 drug buyout threatens developing nations
This “America first” attitude in stockpiling the drug means that there is likely to be very little supply for the rest of the world over the next several months.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
U
nited States President Donald Trump has announced an extraordinary deal to ensure that Americans have access to the first authorized drug treatment for COVID-19: remdesivir, the first drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat COVID-19 that is made by American pharmaceuticals company Gilead Sciences. The deal was announced as it became clear that the US epidemic was spiraling out of control.
At the same time, Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading public health expert who is leading the nation’s COVID-19 response, testified before the Senate that the US was sliding backward in its mitigation efforts.
Gilead holds the patent for the drug, which was invented for Ebola but failed in human trials against that disease, which means that no other company can make it. The first 140,000 doses that were supplied for drug trials around the world have been used up, while the Trump administration has bought more than 500,000 doses – all of Gilead’s production for July and 90 percent of its August and September output.
Data shows that despite its ability to shorten the recovery time for some COVID-19 patients, remdesivir has not been found to significantly improve an individual’s chances of surviving the disease.
This “America first” attitude in stockpiling the drug means that there is likely to be very little supply for the rest of the world over the next several months. The US’ allies are already criticizing the action for undermining the global effort against the pandemic. UK business undersecretary Nadhim Zahawi has been quoted as saying that the US was not helping the global effort by buying up the entire stock of remdesivir.
In contrast, the UK has been working in a responsible manner to deal with the pandemic in a way that will help the entire world. Earlier this month, researchers at the University of Oxford announced that the affordable steroid, dexamethasone, had been found in studies to reduce the risk of death by up to one-third in coronavirus patients with severe respiratory complications.
When a superpower country sees a political need to be ahead of the competition, this will have even greater impacts for developing nations. If we were to draw a spectrum of pandemic mitigation, on one end of the extreme would be governments focusing their efforts on saving lives “at all costs” by issuing total lockdowns; on the other extreme would be governments focusing on saving the economy by adopting very loose restriction policies.
