Vaccine nationalism occurs when a country is able to enter into a pre-purchase agreement with a vaccine manufacturing company to secure vaccine dosages first for its own country before it's made available to other people and countries.
U.S.A has twice indicated that it wants to secure vaccines for Covid-19, Russia has followed the same path.
During the H1N1 outbreak, some rich countries had entered into a pre-purchase agreement with several pharmaceutical companies
Issues:
It deprives populations in the Global South from timely access to vital public health goods.poorer countries are at a disadvantage who have less money and bargaining powervaccines are provided to the population with moderate risk over the population with higher riskit goes against the fundamental principle of vaccine developmentCountries like the USA, Russia didn’t joined the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator program. ACT program ensured equitable, and faster distribution of therapies, technologies, vaccines against Covid-19 to all countries
Way forward:
if it is used judiciously then it can provide incentives to vaccine manufacturing companies to commercialize their vaccines and also they can utilize to increase their production and also make further researchW.H.O must prepare guidelines on equitable distribution of vaccines for next pandemics