At least five lakh sharks to be slaughtered to make COVID-19 vaccines

Conservationists have warned that at least five lakh sharks are likely to be slaughtered in order to develop enough doses of an effective vaccine against COVID-19.

All vaccines consists of an immunological agent called ‘adjuvant’, which makes the vaccine more efficient by strengthening its immune response. With the help of adjuvants vaccines can produce more antibodies, that helps in developing long-lasting immunity against the disease in the recipient.

One such adjuvant is squalene, natural oil that is present in the liver of sharks. In order to obtain one tonne of squalene, approximately 3,000 sharks needs to be killed.

As per the date published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS), 17 out of the 176 candidate vaccine undergoing evaluation, have been reported to use these adjuvants.

Shark Allies, a California-based conservation group, has warned that in order to create one dose of COVID-19 vaccine each for every single person on the planet, about 2.5 lakh sharks will have to be killed for their liver oil. However, if two doses are required per person, then the number of sharks would double to 5 lakh.

While squalene is also found in the livers of many other animals, sharks remain the major commercial sources for the natural oil.

As per estimates made by conservationists, around 30 lakh sharks are killed every year so that people can utilise squalene in cosmetics, machine oil, and other products. British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline, which has announced mass production of 100 crore doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, has already been using shark squalene to make flu vaccines.

Conservationists fear that this sudden spike in demand for mass production of vaccines will not just lead to mass murder of sharks ,but may eventually lead to their endangerment as well. These top predators do not reproduce in huge numbers.

To protect the shark species, scientists have been actively working on a synthetic version of squalene made from fermented sugar cane.

But with such an enormous, urgent, and ever-increasing requirement for vaccines against the novel coronavirus, which has so far infected 3.3 crore and killed 10 lakh people around the world, the number of sharks sacrificed for its production may even exceed the predicted number and continue to soar higher.