Fin Review article today...
Australia must prepare for next year’s COVID-19 challenge
Retired Air Vice-Marshall John Blackburn says Australia must prepare for the waves of COVID variants that are coming and that means building local mRNA manufacturing capacity.
Apr 30, 2021 – 12.00am
As a retired Air Vice-Marshall, John Blackburn is no dove. But even he’s struggling to see how the federal government can apparently prioritise $1 billion to build new missiles and guided weapons when it still has so much to do to address the coronavirus risks that will emerge in 2022 and 2023.
Australia is still struggling to get the vaccines it needs.
Blackburn, who is now chairman of the Institute for Integrated Economic Research, is a proponent for Australia building what he describes as strategic sovereign capabilities – infrastructure that will ensure the country has self-sufficiency in certain areas during times of crisis.
Blackburn says Australian governments have done a commendable job of reacting to the challenges of the pandemic. But the challenges the nation faced last year in securing medicines, and has faced this year in securing COVID-19 vaccines, have shown up our lack of local pharmaceutical manufacturing capability. We import about 90 per cent of our pharmaceuticals.
As the pandemic rages in other parts of the world, the battle to secure vaccines will continue. But Blackburn is looking beyond that; until the entire world is vaccinated, COVID variants are certain to continue to emerge and the nation must be prepared.
The best way to do that, Blackburn argues, is to develop manufacturing capabilities to produce mRNA vaccines, which are able to be reprogrammed to tackle these variants.
If we don’t, Blackburn says, we will be left in the same position we are in now – at the mercy of other countries, who will quite reasonably look after themselves in a crisis.
This strategy received endorsement last week when the Victorian government pledged $50 million to kickstart the development of domestic mRNA manufacturing.
“It’s a great start,” Blackburn says. “But why the hell isn’t the federal government moving on this?”
The Commonwealth would be much better served putting what Blackburn says is a reasonably small amount of money – perhaps a couple of hundred million – into this effort than spending money on missiles.
There are even some ways to speed up the process. Blackburn says ASX-listed group IDT Australia and GlaxoSmithkline have existing facilities that could be re-equipped to produce mRNA vaccines and his industry sources suggest a greenfield facility could be up and running in six months, subject to getting equipment and licences.
Securing those things might prove difficult, but Blackburn believes it is time to roll the dice on securing facilities now in preparation. And if it turns out Australia doesn’t need the mRNA capability for this pandemic, then the government will still be supporting a facility that’s ready for the next health crisis and for testing other drugs based on this technology.
“This is a no-brainer,” Blackburn says. “Reacting is not good enough.”
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