IF you think colonialism is as dead as Hamlet's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, think again. It is alive and well in Europe. The European Union, through its regulator European Medicines Agency (EMA), is giving colonialism a shot in the arm through its Covid-19 digital green pass, which, apartheid-like, is issued only to travellers with jabs manufactured in the West.
At press time, the EMA website had no non-Western made vaccines "authorised for use in the EU". Prominently missing are India's Covishield, AstraZeneca by another name, and China's Sinovac.
Covax too hasn't made the list. Thankfully, not all members of the EU are following EMA's discriminatory guidelines. On Friday, BBC reported several EU nations — Austria, Germany, Greece, Slovenia, Ireland and Spain — saying yes to India's Covishield jabs. But there is a catch. The green pass is meant only for EU citizens. Discrimination within discrimination?
As the BBC report implies, the recognition may have come as a result of an angry India threatening to not recognise the EU green pass if India-made vaccines are not recognised.
Try using the science of medicine to tell the difference between an AstraZeneca made in India and Europe. There is none, as the World Health Organisation's (WHO) experts tell us. If Covishield is good for WHO, why isn't it good enough for EMA?
Medicine isn't the reason, to be sure. Science has been abused like this before. Those who lived through the colonial days will recall notices at the entrance of Whites-only clubs in the Commonwealth which read: "Dogs and Asians are not allowed." The idea behind the EU's green pass isn't very different.
Asia and Africa are looking back in anger. Here is why. The EU green pass discriminates in more ways than one. Beyond vaccines, the green pass is condoning different treatment for different people.
This is a foolish path for the EU to follow. As India has warned, Asian and African nations can reciprocate. Should this come to pass, the EU has only itself to blame if the bloc becomes more insular than it is. We might even be jabbing our way out of globalisation.
Malaysia is not easily angered, but upset it is. Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has a good question for EMA: what difference does a jab manufacturing site make? Does it really matter if the AstraZeneca vaccines are made in South Korea or Thailand, as those received by Malaysians are?
EMA must know that AstraZeneca vaccines, when made outside Europe, are manufactured under a licensing agreement. And they are cleared for use by WHO as the South Korean and Thai-manufactured doses are. The idea of a vaccine passport itself is a controversial one. It has the potential of creating a vaccine North and South.
A vaccine passport only makes sense when every nation has equal access to vaccines. Presently, this is not the case.
The EU is putting the cart before the horse. The right thing to do is to push for a patent waiver to Covid-19 vaccines to make them accessible to all. The US, which once opposed such a waiver, is now for patent suspension.
More than 100 countries can't be wrong. The EU can choose to be on the right side of history. A manufacturing site-based vaccine green pass is a passport to the wrong side of history.