When did survival become a business?
From the beginning of times, humankind has faced all sorts of life-endangering situations, threats, and illnesses. Thus, has been constantly trying to come up with new ways to preserve the species and keep sickness away or at least under control.
Although it was not new to expose an individual to the sickening pathogen in a small dose to inoculate it, formal vaccination was introduced at the end of “The Century of Lights”. Through rabies, diphtheria, Spanish flu, yellow fever, polio, and a wide variety of illnesses, vaccines have enormously evolved and successfully eradicated and prevented many health problems.
Of course, this has at all times involved a broad spectrum of research, investigation, testing, lab resources, and sampling, to set the wheels in motion. In addition, significant amounts of economic resources have been and are being invested in the development of vaccines. Clearly, we are far from the famous quote Of Jonas Salk “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
A variety of theories circulate around the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and the vaccine. The truth is that mRNA vaccine technology is not new. As early as 1987 studies of this nature were being conducted and even patented. It is not unheard of that patents with claims related to a recombinant Coronavirus protein were granted in the United States and Europe prior to the 2019 outbreak in Wuhan, China.
And so, the race began. The vaccine community immediately raced to the solution to this outbreak and relied on prior messenger RNA studies to solve this, hence the velocity of the appearance of a vaccine. Naturally, pharmaceuticals applied for their patents but due to the emergency vaccines were distributed and applied globally at no cost to the population.
Almost three years after the outbreak in the Americas things have apparently gone under control. And we say apparently because new mutations are not strange and as part of the investigation, labs manage these pathogen agents daily with the consequent risks and implications.
Nowadays, liberty of circulation is back and in most places the use of facemasks is optional. People are finally gathering again and the “New Normal” is simply normal once again. At the same time, the economic support that was provided by governments due to the state of emergency is being slowly but surely withdrawn, including the distribution and application of vaccines.
It is expected that new waves of infection will be present, yet they are expected to happen at diverse points in time throughout given that the more the virus circulates, the more opportunities it must mutate. The difference now is that we have an effective vaccine for this disease. And in the end, humanity prevails.
