Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- In the fight against the pandemic, national governments are guided by their own interests instead of taking a more globally coordinated approach, RAND Corporation reported.

The situation in which countries are seeking to gain the first access to the supply of vaccines, potentially accumulating key components for its production, experts call "vaccine nationalism."

According to experts, "vaccine nationalism" could lead to an unequal distribution of vaccines against COVID-19 and cost the global economy up to 1.2 trillion. dollars per year in terms of GDP.

Even if some countries manage to immunize their populations against the virus while it is not under control in all regions of the world, COVID-19 will still have a global economic cost.

Until a widely available vaccine for COVID-19 becomes available, physical distancing measures will continue to negatively impact key sectors of the global economy, especially those that depend on physical proximity.

The global cost of COVID-19 and its economic impact could be US$3.4 trillion a year. For the EU, this will be 5.6% of annual GDP - about US$983 billion. The annual loss suffered by the UK is 2.2% of GDP - about US$480 billion.

However, even if nationalistic behavior is unavoidable, there are economic incentives to ensure access to vaccines around the world.

Previous estimates estimated it would cost US$25 billion to ship vaccines to low-income countries. The United Kingdom, the EU and other high-income countries combined could lose about US$119 billion a year if supplies were denied to the poorest countries. If high-income countries paid to supply vaccines, they would get back about US$4.8 for every dollar spent.

Overall, investment in vaccine development and equal access will be cost-effective over the long term.