CONFLUENCE 02/01/2021 Current affairs Vaccines are here: A shot of Hope by Anya Sitaram On December 8, when 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the However, there was a glimmer of hope. Across the border in Mali first person in the world to have the licenced Pfizer-BioNTech at the Centre for Vaccine Development in Bamako, a clinical trial vaccine against COVID-19, there was a nationwide sigh of relief for a new vaccine against Meningitis was under way. We filmed a that there may a way out of the pandemic. Nurse May Parsons two-year-old boy called Samba Coulibaly, one of the first children who administered the jab said there was light at the end of the to receive the jab and the charismatic scientist leading the research tunnel. So poignant was the television footage, that Health Professor Samba Sow. Secretary Matt Hancock appeared tearful live on television. By middle of February, UK has met the milestone of vaccinating over In 2014 I went to Mali to see the fruits of the vaccine research. 15 million people. As the second wave of the virus grips the UK The results of the latest trials showed that the new vaccine was vaccines are hailed as our only hope. safe and effective in children aged 9 months. Accompanied by Dr Marie-Pierre Preziosi, then director of the Meningitis Vaccine After years of making documentaries on deadly diseases in the Project, our first port of call was at the home of little Samba, the developing world in which vaccines are the life-saving holy grail, toddler we had filmed seven years before. Now aged ten he and it felt surreal to witness scenes his three older siblings had all of celebration here in England had the MenAfrivac inoculation at the roll out of an injection. in 2011 as part of a mass So successful are vaccines that vaccination campaign. the diseases which they protect against have mostly Dr Preziosi told me: “In those disappeared. It brought to mind days way back 7 years ago we a documentary I produced a few had absolutely no idea what years ago called “Meningitis: A would be the results and now Shot of Hope”. Telling the story only 7 years down the line we of MenAfrivac, a vaccine tailor- have more than 200 million made for African meningitis, I people have received the vaccine recall debating with colleagues across the entire meningitis belt”. the title of the film. Often the last step in the documentary It had been 7 years since vaccine making process, titles are one trials had begun, but the efforts of the most important and to find a vaccine had begun back difficult decisions to make. Little did I know that the name we in 1996 after Africa’s worst meningitis epidemic in which 25,000 came up with in 2014, which seemed fitting to a tale of scientific people died. African leaders called on the World Health endeavour, philanthropy and global collaboration would resonate Organization to urgently introduce a more effective and affordable here in the UK several years later. vaccine. With little prospect of profit to interest Western Meningococcal Meningitis is highly contagious and kills about pharmaceutical companies, the Bill and Melinda Gates one in ten people who get it. Even with treatment, as many as a Foundation, set up the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) a quarter of survivors suffer hearing loss, intellectual disability, or partnership between the World health Organization and the not- epilepsy. Meningitis A had caused repeated epidemics in sub- for-profit health organisation PATH. MVP partnered with the Saharan Africa—in a region known as “the meningitis belt” which Indian vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute. With the technology stretches from Senegal to Ethiopia. for the vaccine given at virtually no cost by the US National Institutes of Health, the partnership was able produce vaccines at less than 50 cents a dose. In 2007 we sent a film crew to Burkina Faso to tell the story of the search for a vaccine against Meningitis A. Our camera crew Cost was not the only obstacle to introducing the new vaccine. arrived in the middle of an epidemic that was to kill 4,000 people Just like the vaccine hesitancy swirling around COVID vaccines, in Burkina Faso that year. We filmed health centres so rumours against MenAfrivac were rife. A champion for the cause overwhelmed by the sick and dying that patients were camped was the diminutive figure of little Samba’s mother. Having lost a outside. A young woman lying on the ground outside one rural sister to meningitis in a previous epidemic, she was a stalwart health centre told us how she was stricken with vomiting and a advocate for a vaccine. terrible headache. Worse still, her daughter who had also contracted the disease had died. There were desperate scenes of At a community meeting in Mali’s capital Bamako she was not panic as people jostled to get emergency vaccinations, the only afraid to tell the crowd: My child was vaccinated by Dr Sow’s tool available to combat the disease. But the existing vaccine only team. gave protection for two or three years and did not work on Continued on page 3 children under the age of one. CONFLUENCE 02/01/2021 Contents Editorially speaking Thanks to all our readers and contributors for making it possible to Vaccines are here: A 1 Anya Sitaram publish this issue with its interesting content. I specially thank all our shot of Hope contributors who have sent their submissions on time, which Kavita Mohan Malathy, the sub-editor, has been doing the sterling job of editing. 3 New Dawn in the U S Things have been changing very fast in the last few months and there Remembering Soumitra Sunayana Panda 4 is light at the end of the long dark tunnel. In the UK alone, more than Chatterjee fifteen million people have been given the vaccine already. In the Movie review: Oru rest of the world too vaccination programs have been of great 5 Nesa Arumugam success, despite many hurdles in obtaining the batches of vaccines Cappuccino Kadhal - and giving them to people rapidly. In this context we should all commend and congratulate the medical and scientific community 6 ‘VANITY FAIR’ Kusum Pant Joshi who have been working on the massive vaccine projects tirelessly over the past year and bringing their vaccines to the market at record 7 OPEN THE GATE Lakshmi Kannan speed. Even though many people were sceptical about the vaccines for various reasons now we can see that the proportion of people The Carnatic Parthiban 8 who come forward to take the vaccine is rising and the rate of new Conundrum Manoharan infections are rapidly falling. Let’s hope that we will be able to reclaim our normal life soon by patiently waiting for that to happen 9 Ideal Couple Subhash Chandra gradually. As mentioned in the front-page article by our new A Tale of Two Vaccines Suresh contributor Anya Sitaram, one thing I would like to emphasise in this 10 context is that these vaccines should reach poorer countries too as Subrahmanyan soon as possible rather than keeping it as a privilege for the richer In Conversation with Meenakshi Mohan 11 countries alone, so the whole world will see the benefit of it and Nadia Hashimi prevent the emergence of ferocious new variants that could infiltrate Book review: INDIA by REGINALD our lives once again. 12 Al-Biruni MASSEY'S As many of you have known, it is a real challenge for us to run this Book review: NIGHTS Girija Madhavan magazine without much financial support. Our cost of acquiring and 13 maintaining resources required to run the magazine is steadily OF THE MOONLESS SKY increasing, so I would like to appeal to our readers and writers once 14 Kinetic dreams again to help us by financially supporting us through long term Sunil Sharma sponsorships. Rini Kakati (1945-2020) Kusum Pant Joshi As you may have noticed we are now receiving submissions from 15 many younger generation writers and some of them are the children Review: ‘A poem that of our existing writers too. In this issue, you will find articles from 16 Anya Sitaram who is our sub editor Malathy’s daughter and Kavita painted the sky’ Leonard Dabydeen Mohan who is the daughter of our long-standing contributor Yogesh Patel Meenakshi Mohan If this trend continues, it is a good sign that we 17 Through the poetic lens are breaking generation barriers and becoming a magazine that welcomes writers from all generations. 18 Poem by Roopam Misra Please write to us as we always welcome your valuable feedback. It is not Fair by Sujata Sankranti 19 Keep safe, stay well. Vijay Anand 20 Book review Anjana Basu CONFLUENCE SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVES A Poem: Let Us Now 21 ISSN: 2633-4704 Praise Cormorants Zilka Joseph 23 Cray Avenue, Orpington BR5 4AA United Kingdom Hindu Wedding Malathy Sitaram 22 Telephone: 01689 836 394 / 07801 569 640 MasKED Tapai Gupta 23 MANAGING EDITOR PERFORMANCE Dr. Vijay Anand PhD, MRSC MY AMERICAN 24 Cyril Dabydeen SUB-EDITOR STUDENT Malathy Sitaram FOUNDER EDITOR Late Joe Nathan CONFLUENCE Editorial: SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVES [email protected] Design: Confluence Publishing Ltd WWW.CONFLUENCE.ORG.UK The views expressed by interviewees or contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect Confluence editorial policy. No part of this WWW.CONFLUENCE.MOBI publication or part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the express permission of the publisher in writing.