PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

(Yonhap Interview) Partnering with S. Korea, India seeks to export K9 howitzers to third countries: Indian secretary

India's Secretary for Defense Production Raj Kumar poses for a photo during an interview with Yonhap News Agency at a hotel in Seoul on Oct. 21, 2021. (Yonhap)

Interviews October 21, 2021
By Song Sang-ho and Kang Yoon-seung

SEOUL, Oct. 21 (Yonhap) -- India is seeking to export the K9 self-propelled howitzer to third countries in cooperation with South Korea, India's secretary for defense production said Thursday, stressing his country is pushing for a "win-win" partnership between the two sides.

Raj Kumar made the remarks during an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency, expressing satisfaction over India's recent deployment of the K9s, which were manufactured by the Indian company, L&T, in technical collaboration with the South Korean company Hanwha Defense.

"The Indian armed forces are very satisfied with the performance of the K9 Vajra platform, where the K9 Thunder has been very effectively adapted and indigenously built for Indian conditions and requirements," the secretary said.

"The variant of the platform also has good potential in third countries, and our governments (of India and South Korea) and industries are cooperating to take these opportunities forward," he added.

Raj Kumar was in Seoul to visit the biennial Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX), which began its five-day run Tuesday to showcase high-tech weapons systems, including stealth fighters and hydrogen-powered drones.

India's military has recently rolled out 100 K9 howitzers to multiple areas, including those bordering China, as it has been pushing for military modernization. Kumar cast the domestic production of the K9s as a "success story" and "unique milestone" in cooperation between the two countries.

Asked if India's military has a plan to purchase more K9s, the secretary refused to give a direct answer.

"It's a dynamic process, and our armed forces do continuous assessment of their requirements and their capabilities," he said. "Depending upon future needs, you know, they (will) look at it."

The collaborative project between South Korea and India to produce the K9s is in tune with New Delhi's "Make In India" initiative aimed at turning the country into a global manufacturing hub.

"What we are looking at is making India make for the world, and we should have joint working collaboration and co-production," he said.

"They should ultimately result in self reliance for our country, but in the process, it should be a win-win for the industries of both India and Korea," he added.

South Korean defense companies have been stepping up efforts to advance into or strengthen their footholds in India's market, as India has been pushing for its wide-ranging defense modernization with an increased focus on homeland security.

From 2014-2019, the Indian government concluded contracts worth US$25.8 billion with Indian firms, many of which have partnered with international defense firms, according to the official.

"(Republic of Korea) defense industries can take advantage of these openings and huge opportunities now that a relationship of trust and confidence has been developed between the Indian and Korean defense establishments," Raj Kumar said.

sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)

S. Korean defense firms clinch deals worth US$128 mln at ADEX: organizers

 October 24, 2021

SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korean defense companies have signed business contracts worth US$128 million in total during a biennial arms exhibition held south of Seoul last week, its organizers said Sunday.

More than 250 local companies joined the five-day Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX), which ended Saturday. The event marked a rare opportunity for the companies to explore new opportunities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the finalized contracts, local companies had consultations with their foreign clients over potential contracts, which could amount to a combined $22.5 billion if signed, organizers said.

During the exhibition, organizers arranged more than 700 meetings between local firms and foreign governments at the ADEX venue, Seoul Air Base, they said.

The 2021 exhibition involved 440 companies from 28 countries. It marks the largest number of participating firms since the exhibition was launched in 1996.


The South Korean Air Force's acrobatic flight team, the Black Eagles, performs to mark the opening of the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX) 2021 at Seoul Air Base, south of Seoul, on Oct. 18, 2021. (Yonhap)

colin@yna.co.kr
(END)

(Yonhap Feature) S. Korean farmers struggle from labor shortage as pandemic disrupts migrant work system

Feature October 17, 2021
By Chang Dong-woo

ANSEONG, South Korea, Oct. 17 (Yonhap) -- Koh Jin-taek is proud of having built a small but stable farming business in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, over the past two decades producing primarily lettuce, chicory and other types of leafy vegetables.

He currently owns 44 vinyl greenhouses and had supplied nearly 10,000 kilograms of produce monthly to food companies, with annual sales climbing as high as 800 million won (US$680,000).

Things looked fairly bright for 53-year-old until COVID-19 landed in South Korea last year.

Koh now has become increasingly doubtful of whether he can maintain his business going forward.

"We have to supply at least 9,000 kg of vegetables each month to break even and save some money. Last month, we were only able to sell 4,800 kg," Koh said.





Koh Jin-taek, a farmer in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, walks along his vinyl greenhouses used for producing vegetables on Oct. 15, 2021. (Yonhap)

One of the main reasons for such difficulties is the shortage of affordable labor.

The pandemic led to a sharp drop in the number of migrant workers in South Korea, driving up their wages. Koh's once nine-person workforce was recently slashed down to five as four abruptly left for higher paying jobs.

South Korea runs three types of migration labor schemes under which workers from 16 Asian countries are allowed to work in fields of low-skilled manual work, such as fishing, farming and manufacturing under E-8, E-9 and C-4 visas.

The programs are intended to provide local farmers with cheap labor while offering comparatively high wages for overseas workers who would have earned much less for the same job back in their home countries.

In 2019, nearly 9,000 workers from Asian countries, including Cambodia, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh, were hired here through the program. But due to strengthened border control against the pandemic, the number plunged 82 percent to 1,590 from January to August of this year.

This continued shortage of migrant workers is creating a supply-demand imbalance of farm labor, leading to a surge in hiring costs.

This phenomenon came as the local farming sector is dependent on foreign work more than ever. Young South Koreans are increasingly shunning manual labor, such as farming and fishing, and choosing to live in cities with higher-paying jobs.

Koh says he finds himself constantly checking his savings to see whether he is able to shoulder the sharp increase in labor costs due to the shortage of migrant workers since the pandemic.

The fast aging of the farming population isn't helping either. Last year, people over the age of 65 accounted for 41.7 percent of all farm households, up 3.9 percentage points from 2015.

A large number of anecdotes suggest that workers who arrive in South Korea are reportedly offered as high as double the daily wages as those before the pandemic.

Koh said his town's agency that matches farmers with migrant workers recently increased the daily wage up to 120,000 won from 80,000 won.

Koh said he had to destroy 30 vinyl greenhouses worth of goods this year. He simply was not able to harvest the perfectly tradable vegetables due to the labor shortage.

Rep. Ahn Ho-young of the ruling Democratic Party, a member of the parliament's labor committee, pointed out in a recent government audit session that the steep hikes in costs are driving local farmers to resort to employing undocumented workers.

On the consumer side of things, the labor shortage has ended up weakening the overall output of farm produce. This has led to hikes in food prices and has added inflationary pressure to the economy.

In the second quarter, South Korea ranked third among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the growth rate of food prices.

Despite seeing higher wages, migrant workers themselves too aren't necessarily welcoming of the situation.

"Work is more difficult and time consuming as we are constantly understaffed," said Sreychom Mao, a 30-year-old worker from Cambodia.

Some farming communities are demanding that farmers be included in the government program that compensates small and midsized businesses for damage caused by adhering to social distancing rules.

To help out, most counties across the nation offer support, such as discounts for renting farm equipment, while some also send their employees in groups to local farms to help out with the manual labor.

But such peripheral actions are nowhere near the amount of help and attention farmers are requesting.

Koh hopes that the central and local government can offer subsidies so that farmers are able to hire South Korean workers, even if higher wages have to be offered.

"If the government provides support, local workers might make the effort to come here," Koh said.

Farmers will be left with nothing if the financial burden of employing local workers is put solely on farmers themselves, he said.

odissy@yna.co.kr
(END)

 

N. Korea confirms test-launch of new SLBM

This combined photo, released Oct. 20, 2021, by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, shows a new type of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) being test-fired from waters the previous day. The South Korean military said on Oct. 19 that North Korea fired what appears to be an SLBM toward the East Sea from waters east of Sinpo, a city on the North's east coast. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
(END)

(LEAD) U.S., S. Korea to continue discussing end-of-war declaration, other options for N. Korea diplomacy: Washington envoy

 October 24, 2021
By Song Sang-ho and Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. point man on North Korea said Sunday that he looks forward to continuing exploring different options with South Korea to resume dialogue with Pyongyang, including the proposed declaration of a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War.

Sung Kim, special representative for North Korea, also reiterated Washington's willingness to help address the North's humanitarian concerns for its people in need, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, speaking to reporters right after a meeting here with his South Korean counterpart, Noh Kyu-duk.

He also called on Pyongyang to stop "provocations" and other destabilizing activities, and return to dialogue.

Their talks in Seoul came after tensions resurfaced following the North's recent test-firing of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). They met in Washington last week -- a sign of stepped-up diplomacy to resume dialogue with the North.

"I look forward to continuing to work with special representative Noh to explore different ideas and initiatives, including the ROK's end-of-war proposal as we continue to pursue our shared objectives on the peninsula," Kim said. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, Republic of Korea.


Noh Kyu-duk, South Korea's top nuclear envoy, and his U.S. counterpart, Sung Kim, speak during a joint press event after their meeting on North Korean issues in Seoul on Oct. 24, 2021. 

(Pool photo) (Yonhap)

Calling the latest SLBM test "concerning and counterproductive," he highlighted Washington's "strong commitment" to the defense of the South and exploring "sustained and substantive" diplomacy with the North.

Kim described the latest launch as a breach of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions but underlined the Joe Biden administration's desire to reengage with the North.

"We remain ready to meet with the DPRK without preconditions, and we have made clear that the United States harbors no hostile intent towards the DPRK," he said, referring to the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"We hope the DPRK will respond positively to our outreach," he added.

Upon Kim's trip here, keen attention was drawn to whether he will shine more light on the U.S. position about President Moon Jae-in's recent proposal for the end-of-war declaration, but he didn't elaborate further.

Kim's characterization of the North's latest SLBM test as a "provocation" came as Pyongyang demanded Seoul and Washington drop what it terms "double standards" in reference to the allies casting the North's missile launches as provocations while justifying their own as "deterrence."

Noh said the latest security situation on the Korean Peninsula underscored the urgent need for resuming talks North Korea, and Seoul and Washington are ready to discuss any issues at the negotiating table if the North accepts their talk offer.

"We reaffirmed the earlier stance that (Seoul and Washington) can discuss any issue if it returns to the negotiating table," Noh said. "As the U.S. government from various levels has been continuously expressing willingness for talks, I hope the North Korean side promptly accepts the offer."

North Korea remains unresponsive to U.S. overtures. It has also stayed away from talks with the U.S. since the Hanoi summit in 2019 between the U.S. and North Korea ended without a deal.

The Seoul official said Kim and he discussed various ways to resume the peace process, including the end-of-war declaration and humanitarian assistance.

"Kim and I had serious and in-depth consultations over the end-of-war proposal as part of extended discussions in Washington," Noh said. "We agreed to continue to push for various ways to engage with North Korea, including cooperation in humanitarian cooperation and meaningful trust-building measures."

Noh said the two sides will have additional consultations at an early date on North Korea.

The U.S. envoy is scheduled to depart Seoul later in the day for Jakarta, where he doubles as ambassador.

ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)

Sri Lanka bans contaminated Chinese fertiliser

Issued on: 24/10/2021 

Sri Lanka Ports Authority has said it was told by the agriculture ministry to prevent the unloading of tainted fertiliser from China at any port 

ISHARA S. KODIKARA AFP/File

Colombo (AFP)

The action comes as Sri Lanka battles food shortages caused by a currency crisis while farmers have said a government ban on chemical fertiliser could ruin their crops this year.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office said the National Plant Quarantine Services had tested a sample from the unnamed Chinese vessel and "confirmed the presence of organisms, including certain types of harmful bacteria".

A Commercial High Court has banned any payment to Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group Co., Ltd for the 96,000 tonnes of fertiliser, an official statement added.

Authorities halted the $42 million deal last month, but reports said the cargo had still been shipped and was due in Colombo. The location of the ship has not been revealed.

Sri Lanka Ports Authority said the agricultural ministry ordered them on Saturday to prevent the unloading of the fertiliser in any port and to turn away the Chinese vessel.

Sri Lanka originally ordered the organic fertiliser from China as part of its efforts to become the world's first 100 percent organic farming nation.

The organic plant nutrients from China were meant to replace the phased-out chemicals during the main rice cultivation season that started October 15.

Following widespread farmer protests that the abandoning of agrochemicals would critically hit yields, the government last week lifted the ban on chemical fertiliser imposed in May.

It has since imported 30,000 tonnes of potassium chloride as fertiliser and some three million litres of nitrogen-based plant nutrients from India.

Farmers of tea -- the main export commodity along with rice -- have warned crop yields could be halved without chemicals.

© 2021 AFP

Wheat Hits New Highs as World Appetite Grows and Supply Shrinks



Kim Chipman and Megan Durisin
Fri, October 22, 2021

(Bloomberg) -- Spring wheat surged to $10 a bushel for the first time since 2012 as hot and dry crop conditions from North America’s prairies to Russia’s Urals leaves the world short on grain used to make everything from croissants to pizza crusts.

Prices climbed for the sixth straight week, the longest run of gains in more than two years, as a global appetite grows for wheat of all types. The U.S. expects overall grain stockpiles to end the season at a five-year low. The scarcity is boosting demand for hard red winter wheat, which was more abundant this year than other varieties. Those futures soared to a seven-year high.

Attention is now turning to 2022 and the early outlook is triggering concern. A three-month forecast from the U.S. predicts more drought in some of the country’s key wheat regions. That could cause growers already facing soaring costs for basic farm products to hold back on big crop investments.

“With the dryness, combined with fertilizer prices up double year on year and availability concerns, many wheat farmers will be ‘spoon feeding’ their crop,” Justin Gilpin, chief executive officer of the Kansas Wheat Commission, said in an interview. It “makes 2022 production harder to estimate at this time.”

The prospect of further supply problems next year raises the chance that wheat prices will continue to surge upward and worsen worldwide food inflation. The latest United Nations figures show food prices at a decade high amid harvest setbacks and supply chain disruptions.

Higher wheat prices also could boost the cost of livestock feed when China has been looking for alternatives to corn and soybeans to feed help feed its hog herds.

U.S. Drought Forecast Signals Latest Threat to World Wheat

Most-active spring wheat futures in the U.S. climbed 2.8% to $10.13 a bushel on Friday, the highest since July 2012. The futures in Minneapolis have soared 69% this year.

Hard red winter wheat, which is widely used for all-purpose flour and also is a potential substitute for spring wheat, settled the day up 3.5% at $7.74 a bushel in Chicago. That’s the priciest since May 2014.

Benchmark soft winter wheat, an ingredient in cakes, cookies and crackers, rose 2% to $7.56 a bushel in Chicago.

In other crops, December corn rose and January soybeans fell.

Poll: 6 in 10 percent of parents rate local schools highly despite GOP efforts to fan outrage over race and masks

Andrew Romano

·West Coast Correspondent

Sat, October 23, 2021, 

As Republican politicians from Virginia to Wisconsin stoke conservative outrage toward local school leaders over hot-button social issues and COVID-19 restrictions, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that most Americans actually like their local schools and trust their local school boards, not parents, to decide what happens in the classroom.

The survey of 1,704 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Oct. 19 to 21, comes as national Republicans have seized upon the “parents matter” messaging of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin — who has sought to transform schools into a cultural war zone by railing against racial and gender equity initiatives and public-health measures — as a possible template for the rest of the party heading into the 2022 midterms.

Youngkin opposes school mask mandates and has promised to ban what he calls “critical race theory” on his first day in office. Local school boards in states such as Florida have also been the target of vocal opposition and even harassment from conservative parents and activists who are upset by the same policies.

Yet according to the poll, a full 60 percent of parents with kids under 18 rate their local schools as either good or excellent; just 34 percent rate them either poor or fair. Republicans feel much the same way: 55 percent say their schools are good or excellent while just 33 percent say they’re poor or fair.

And far from disagreeing with Youngkin’s Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe — who has said he does not believe that “parents should be telling schools what they should teach” — Americans think it’s “mostly the Board of Education” (47 percent) that ought to determine the curriculum, as opposed to “mostly parents” (29 percent).

Likewise, 38 percent of Americans say parents should have “more” influence over instruction “than they have now” — while a larger share say either “the same as they have now” (30 percent) or less (14 percent).

A wide majority of Americans (56 percent) also agree that students and staff should be required to mask up in school when Delta is surging, versus 29 percent who say they shouldn’t and 15 percent who aren’t sure.

Third grade students in Mrs. Jordan's class prepare to exit their classroom in orderly fashion as they participate in the Great Shakeout at Pacific Elementary School in Manhattan Beach on Thursday, October 21, 2021. (Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)

But while the crossover appeal of a “parents matter” strategy might be limited, there are signs it could help Republicans mobilize their base. For instance, nearly three-quarters of 2020 Donald Trump voters (72 percent) say parents should have more influence over curriculum than they have now. A full 60 percent of Trump voters think it’s “mostly parents” who should determine what’s taught in classrooms. And even more (62 percent) say students and staff shouldn’t have to cover their faces in school during a Delta surge.

At the same time, recognition of the phrase Critical Race Theory — the name of a graduate-level approach to race studies that conservatives have used to mislabel any attempt to discuss systemic racism in K-12 classrooms — is slightly higher now (57 percent) than it was in June (52 percent), while the number of Americans who say the U.S. has a problem with systemic racism has fallen from 58 percent to 55 percent over the same period.

Yet Republicans also risk a backlash by pushing too hard. If Americans agree on anything about U.S. schools as a whole, it’s that they have become “too politicized” (69 percent) by "national debates over race, gender and COVID-19.”

To be sure, more Republicans than anyone else (84 percent) are currently convinced that schools have become too politicized, and nearly all of them (88 percent) say “liberals” deserve the most blame. But it’s worth noting that two-thirds of Democrats (66 percent) also think schools have become too politicized, and nearly all of them (76 percent) say “conservatives” deserve the most blame. Most independents say conservatives (58 percent) and liberals (69 percent) both deserve at least some blame for politicizing schools.

Those are big numbers across the board. It’s true that Republicans may rile up Trump voters this fall and next by disparaging school officials. But right now, just 39 percent of Americans say schools in their own area have become too politicized — 30 points less than the share who say they’ve become too politicized on a national level. The more Republicans attack specific schools in specific communities, the more resistance they might arouse.

G20 SHOULD END BOOSTER SHOTS

'We're definitely not doing enough' to help global vaccinations: Former US Commerce Sec.

Anjalee Khemlani
·Senior Reporter
Fri, October 22, 2021,


The U.S. is drawing criticism at home and abroad for providing booster shots and potentially expanding COVID-19 vaccines for children while some countries have yet to be able to immunize frontline health-care workers.

"We're definitely not doing enough," Gary Locke, former U.S. Commerce Secretary during the Obama administration, told Yahoo Finance Live.

"Yes, all of our manufacturers are going 24/7... but we really need to expand the existing production facilities and really focus on the human infrastructure, the delivery mechanisms of getting the shots in arms of people," Locke said.

"We should be treating this as any other natural disaster; it's a human disaster. And we should be offering our personnel, whether it's relief workers or military personnel, and not just Americans, but from all around the world including U.N. forces," Locke said.

Advocacy groups like Public Citizen and Doctors Without Borders have joined the World Health Organization's call for solidarity in the need for equitable distribution of vaccines globally in order to end the pandemic.

To do so would require sharing intellectual property to ramp up production. With companies reluctant to do so, others are hoping to recreate the formulas for existing vaccines. Some companies are viable candidates to produce mRNA vaccines, including Biological E, working with Baylor College of Medicine, and the Serum Institute of India, which was supposed to bear the greatest burden of global vaccine production before the Delta wave hit and the company pivoted to domestic distribution.

These efforts don't replace the push for using the World Trade Organization's TRIPS agreement, to protect members' copyrights, or waiving it. The U.S. supported the idea to waive intellectual property rights in the case of COVID-19 vaccines, while European countries are among those stalling the negotiation process.

Vaccine manufacturers have maintained it is not rational to pursue an intellectual property waiver, with reasons that range from supply chain constrains to lack of skilled labor and other resources.

Pfizer (PFE) CEO Albert Bourla announced a partnership with South Africa's Biovac Institute, which will be operational by early 2022. He previously told Yahoo Finance that this process of including partners, and keeping a tight control on vaccine operations, is how the company has avoided some of the delays and issues that its competitors have seen.

Moderna (MRNA) CEO Stéphane Bancel announced waiving patent enforcement in October, but previously told Yahoo Finance that the company did not have the resources needed to help with transferring technology. Moderna announced it would create a manufacturing hub in Africa, but did not disclose where.

Both the mRNA companies (particularly Moderna for the steep investment of public dollars that helped produce its vaccine) have seen advocacy groups protest at their office doorsteps, at the CEO's homes, and even abroad, calling for greater attention to poorer countries.

The pushback from the companies gives critics the sense that U.S. support of the waiver is largely symbolic.

Locke said the concern over intellectual property is a fair one and that it would take too long for some places to build out the skills and capacity needed.

"Allowing some company to get the secret sauce ... will not enable them to ramp up a production facility overnight. It's not like you're building a factory to make shoes or shirts or toys," Locke said, citing the issues that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) partner Emergent BioSolutions faced after 60 million doses of the J&J shot had to be discarded for contamination.

Follow Anjalee on Twitter @AnjKhem

African effort to replicate mRNA vaccine targets disparities

By LORI HINNANT, MARIA CHENG and ANDREW MELDRUM

1 of 12

Scientists re-enact the calibration procedure of equipment at an Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines facility in Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday Oct. 19, 2021. In a pair of warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world's poor. 

(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)


CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — In a pair of Cape Town warehouses converted into a maze of airlocked sterile rooms, young scientists are assembling and calibrating the equipment needed to reverse engineer a coronavirus vaccine that has yet to reach South Africa and most of the world’s poorest people.

The energy in the gleaming labs matches the urgency of their mission to narrow vaccine disparities. By working to replicate Moderna’s COVID-19 shot, the scientists are effectively making an end run around an industry that has vastly prioritized rich countries over poor in both sales and manufacturing.

And they are doing it with unusual backing from the World Health Organization, which is coordinating a vaccine research, training and production hub in South Africa along with a related supply chain for critical raw materials. It’s a last resort effort to make doses for people going without, and the intellectual property implications are still murky.

“We are doing this for Africa at this moment, and that drives us,” said Emile Hendricks, a 22-year-old biotechnologist for Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, the company trying to reproduce the Moderna jab. “We can no longer rely on these big superpowers to come in and save us.”

Some experts see reverse engineering — recreating vaccines from fragments of publicly available information — as one of the few remaining ways to redress the power imbalances of the pandemic. Only 0.7% of vaccines have gone to low-income countries so far, while nearly half have gone to wealthy countries, according to an analysis by the People’s Vaccine Alliance.

That WHO, which relies upon the goodwill of wealthy countries and the pharmaceutical industry for its continued existence, is leading the attempt to reproduce a proprietary vaccine demonstrates the depths of the supply disparities.

The U.N.-backed effort to even out global vaccine distribution, known as COVAX, has failed to alleviate dire shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed to fill the gap. Meanwhile, pressure for drug companies to share, including Biden administration demands on Moderna, has led nowhere.

Until now, WHO has never directly taken part in replicating a novel vaccine for current global use over the objections of the original developers. The Cape Town hub is intended to expand access to the novel messenger RNA technology that Moderna, as well as Pfizer and German partner BioNTech, used in their vaccines.

“This is the first time we’re doing it to this level, because of the urgency and also because of the novelty of this technology,” said Martin Friede, a WHO vaccine research coordinator who is helping direct the hub.

Dr. Tom Frieden, the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has described the world as “being held hostage” by Moderna and Pfizer, whose vaccines are considered the most effective against COVID-19. The novel mRNA process uses the genetic code for the spike protein of the coronavirus and is thought to trigger a better immune response than traditional vaccines.

Arguing that American taxpayers largely funded Moderna’s vaccine development, the Biden administration has insisted the company must expand production to help supply developing nations. The global shortfall through 2022 is estimated at 500 million and 4 billion doses, depending on how many other vaccines come on the market.

“The United States government has played a very substantial role in making Moderna the company it is,” said David Kessler, the head of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. program to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development.

Kessler would not say how far the administration would go in pressing the company. “They understand what we expect to happen,” he said.

Moderna has pledged to build a vaccine factory in Africa at some point in the future. But after pleading with drugmakers to share their recipes, raw materials and technological know-how, some poorer countries are done waiting.

Afrigen Managing Director Petro Terblanche said the Cape Town company is aiming to have a version of the Moderna vaccine ready for testing in people within a year and scaled up for commercial production not long after.

“We have a lot of competition coming from Big Pharma. They don’t want to see us succeed,” Terblanche said. “They are already starting to say that we don’t have the capability to do this. We are going to show them.”

If the team in South Africa succeeds in making a version of Moderna’s vaccine, the information will be publicly released for use by others, Terblanche said. Such sharing is closer to an approach U.S. President Joe Biden championed in the spring and the pharmaceutical industry strongly opposes.

Commercial production is the point at which intellectual property could become an issue. Moderna has said it would not pursue legal action against a company for infringing on its vaccine rights, but neither has it offered to help companies that have volunteered to make its mRNA shot.

Chairman Noubar Afeyan said Moderna determined it would be better to expand production itself than to share technology and plans to deliver billions of additional doses next year.

“Within the next six to nine months, the most reliable way to make high-quality vaccines and in an efficient way is going to be if we make them,” Afeyan said.

Zoltan Kis, an expert in messenger RNA vaccines at Britain’s University of Sheffield, said reproducing Moderna’s vaccine is “doable” but the task would be far easier if the company shared its expertise. Kis estimated the process involves fewer than a dozen major steps. But certain procedures are tricky, such as sealing the fragile messenger RNA in lipid nanoparticles, he said.

“It’s like a very complicated cooking recipe,” he said. “Having the recipe would be very, very helpful, and it would also help if someone could show you how to do it.”

A U.N.-backed public health organization still hopes to persuade Moderna that its approach to providing vaccines for poorer countries misses the mark. Formed in 2010, the Medicines Patent Pool initially focused on convincing pharmaceutical companies to share patents for AIDS drugs.

“It’s not about outsiders helping Africa,” Executive Director Charles Gore said of the South Africa vaccine hub. “Africa wants to be empowered, and that’s what this is about.”

It will eventually fall to Gore to try to resolve the intellectual property question. Work to recreate Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is protected as research, so a potential dispute would surround steps to sell a replicated version commercially, he said.

“It’s about persuading Moderna to work with us rather than using other methods,” Gore said.

He said the Medicines Patent Pool repeatedly tried but failed to convince Pfizer and BioNTech - the first companies out with an effective vaccine - to even discuss sharing their formulas.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is among the members of Congress backing a bill that calls on the United States to invest more in making and distributing COVID-19 vaccines in low-and middle-income countries, said reverse engineering isn’t going to happen fast enough to keep the virus from mutating and spreading further.

“We need to show some hustle. We have to show a sense of urgency, and I’m not seeing that urgency,” he said. “Either we end this pandemic or we muddle our way through.”

Campaigners argue the meager amount of vaccines available to poorer countries through donations, COVAX and purchases suggests the Western-dominated pharmaceutical industry is broken.

“The enemy to these corporations is losing their potential profit down the line,” Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer of the global health nonprofit Partners in Health, said. “The enemy isn’t the virus, the enemy isn’t suffering.”

Back in Cape Town, the promise of using mRNA technology against other diseases motivates the young scientists.

“The excitement is around learning how we harness mRNA technology to develop a COVID-19 vaccine,” Caryn Fenner, Afrigen’s technical director, said. But more important, Fenner said, “is not only using the mRNA platform for COVID, but for beyond COVID.”

___

Cheng reported from London; Hinnant reported from Paris.

Health-care labor shortages are compounding worker burnout nationally: Study

Anjalee Khemlani

·Senior Reporter

Thu, October 21, 2021

A confluence of issues have put strains on health care systems amid the ongoing pandemic, and they could lead to increased costs in 2022, according to Moody's.

In a new report, the firm highlighted how ongoing pressures in the health care labor market — which began well before the pandemic but have been exacerbated by it — are creating a costly shift for employers.

"After a short reprieve, the use of expensive contract labor for nursing has increased as COVID-19 cases have risen with the Delta variant. Many hospitals report that hourly wages for contract labor are up again, and in some cases, to a higher level than during the surge seen in mid-2020," the report noted.

It's why Moody's associate managing director Lisa Goldstein said the country is facing a "very pronounced national labor shortage."

Registered nurse Kelsey Simons pauses while putting on her personal protective equipment (PPE) gear before treating a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) positive patient inside their isolation room in the intensive care unit (ICU) at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Florida, U.S., September 21, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

But one thing different from the pre-COVID-19 shortage is the addition of experienced nurses burning out and retiring as a result of the intense workplace demand amid the pandemic, according to Goldstein.

In addition, other health care workers — non-clinical workers, in particular —are also in short supply. That includes those in the environmental, housekeeping and cybersecurity sectors.

"So the labor shortage is much broader and much deeper now than in the past," Goldstein said.

There are several factors compounding the shortage — including worker pay. It's far more financially rewarding for clinical workers to work as contractors rather than for hospitals, which is one reason hospitals are seeing increased costs, Goldstein said.

Another key factor in staffing shortages is the highly demanding and difficult work caused by COVID-19 and its surges. Vaccine mandates are another factor in the worker shortage. 

"It is a real problem, financially, that will lead to lower margins over the near-term," Goldstein said.

"It will undoubtedly lead to higher costs for everyone seeking health care. So we may see a rise in premiums, in our hospital health care bills," she added.

The one silver lining is that the pandemic spurred interest in the health sector, as evidenced by the increase in enrollment in nursing schools in 2020. But that doesn't help with today's staffing shortages.

"Hospitals ... will have to throw a lot of resources to not only recruit and be competitive in their salaries," but also to retain employees, which will lead to wage inflation, Goldstein said.

The needs of the aging U.S. population will keep pressure on labor needs, and, as a result Goldstein said, hospital margins.