Evo Morales declared he would run in Bolivia’s next presidential election as the candidate for the ruling MAS party—two years before the ballot and before MAS had even held its primary. It is the latest gambit in Morales’ increasingly bitter struggle with President Luis Arce, as both seek to lead the party into the 2025 election.
No one paying attention would disagree with Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s assessment that the “war on drugs” has failed miserably. But highlighting the failure of previous strategies to tackle drug trafficking does nothing to protect the embattled Petro from what has happened to Colombia’s cocaine trade since he took office.
Today at WPR, we’re covering a significant vulnerability in the Russia-China strategic partnership and China’s global development ambitions.
But first, here’s our take on today’s top story:
Malaria vaccine: The World Health Organization has approved a new anti-malaria vaccine. The R21/Matrix-M, developed by Oxford University, is the second such vaccine to be recommended by the WHO and offers a cheaper and more accessible option to combat the disease. (Washington Post)
Our Take: While the COVID-19 pandemic may have inured many of us to the world-changing impact of vaccine development, it is worth highlighting how consequential this news is.
Malaria was responsible for an estimated 619,000 deaths in 2021, nearly all of which occurred in Africa and 80 percent of which were children under the age of 5. That there are now two vaccines for combating the disease is a significant positive breakthrough for global health.
Still, as Jeremy Youde wrote when the first vaccine was recommended by the WHO in 2021, this development highlights the degree to which global health governance, initiatives and attention are driven by the private sector, private foundations and public-private partnerships. In this case, tackling Malaria has been a top priority for the Gates Foundation. But efforts to counter other diseases and public health concerns that don’t have such a powerful benefactor behind them often suffer.
Moreover, even with two vaccines in existence, global inequalities in health financing and infrastructure will remain formidable obstacles to distributing them in the areas that need it most, in this case in Africa. The fact that the new vaccine will be produced by the Serum Institute of India also underscores the degree to which vaccine production facilities remain underdeveloped in Africa, a key grievance that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
