Half a million sharks could be killed to make Covid-19 vaccines using their liver oil, conservationists warn
Conservationists have warned that half a million sharks’ lives are in danger as companies rush to manufacture vaccination for Covid-19. According to reports, a vital ingredient used in some of the vaccines now under development is squalene, which comes from sharks. Squalene is a natural oil, which is collected from these marine species.
It has been said that pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has already started using squalene in its adjuvant - an immunological agent used to enhance the immune response of a vaccine. A few months back, the firm said that it would produce a billion doses of the shark-based adjuvant for their use in coronavirus vaccines. But Shark Allies, a US-based campaign group dedicated to the protection of sharks and rays, mentioned in an online petition that “this could spell potential disaster for sharks and humans since this resource is neither sustainable nor reliable for the mass production of a COVID-19 vaccine.” The group stated, “Shark squalene production requires relying on a finite, wild animal population. Most shark species are already at critical levels and will not withstand an increase in demand for a global vaccine.”
Shark Allies has instead urged companies that are making Covid-19 vaccines to “replace shark squalene with non-animal squalene ASAP.” It added: “Include non-animal squalene in all tests for current and future products that use squalene. Support and develop large-scale production of non-animal squalene.” Reports have stated that nearly 3000 sharks are slaughtered to produce a ton of squalene. So if one dose of vaccine with squalene is enough to immunize the world population against coronavirus, it would need around 250,000 dead sharks, conservationists estimated, adding if two doses would be needed to save people from the deadly virus, the number would automatically increase to half a million.
Writing against this animal cruelty, Shark Allies said in the petition, which has been signed by over nine thousand people, “Squalene made from shark liver oil is used most commonly because it is cheap to obtain and easy to come by, not because it is more effective than other sources. Countries producing shark squalene may soon need the oil for their own vaccine. The supply chain has never been tested at the scale that a coronavirus vaccine would demand. There is also very little quality control and transparency in the shark squalene industry. In a nutshell, exploiting sharks for a key vaccine ingredient that can be derived from more sustainable and reliable non-animal alternatives is a detrimental and destructive approach.”
Making the argument stronger, the group backed its statements with facts and wrote on its website, “Why would a company choose to use shark-derived squalene in their adjuvants, over sustainable plant-based alternatives? The only answer we can see is cost. Plant-based squalene is approximately 30% more expensive than shark squalene. One of the reasons shark squalene is cheaper is because of the ease of extraction of squalene from the shark.
“Squalene with a purity of >98% is obtained directly from the liver oil of a shark after a single distillation phase in a vacuum at temperatures of 200-230 degrees Celsius. This process takes only 10 hours whereas nearly 70 hours of processing are required to obtain olive oil squalene with a purity higher than 92%. The purity of non-shark-derived squalene, however, can be comparable to that of shark squalene.”
Shark Allies concluded: “We want to make this clear, Shark Allies is no way asking these companies to slow down the process of a COVID-19 vaccine. Instead, we are asking these companies to replace the shark squalene in some of these vaccine adjuvants with alternative non-animal-derived squalene.”