In 1715 when English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montagu contracted smallpox, it was just her beautiful face that suffered lasting damage, but she lost her sibling to the same disease a short while later. When her husband was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire a few years later, Lady Mary came across the cure to the disease that had made her life miserable.

In a letter she wrote to a friend, which she started by saying, “I will tell you such a thing that you will wish you were in Istanbul,” Montagu informs her friend that the Ottomans prevent the contraction of smallpox with the variolation method. This news is priceless, since during those times hundreds of thousands of people were dying annually in Europe after contracting smallpox.

Lady Mary began by instructing the embassy surgeon to inoculate her small son, and then a few years later after her return to London, she conducted a few trials with the same doctor and after the results were successful, the Ottoman method gained acceptance and spread. In short, Lady Montagu combined her pain, intellect and patriotism to take the Ottoman cure to the West.

The Ottoman experience with vaccination is not limited to smallpox. In 1885 when Abdülhamit II learned that Louis Pasteur had found a cure to rabies, which was rampant in the 19th century, he immediately dispatched a team to Paris to receive training in rabies vaccination, and also rewarded Pasteur richly. The team upon returning home in 1887 established the Rabies Treatment Institute. In a way it was a transfer of technology in those times!

In 1893 another institute of microbiology was established and various vaccines such as those for typhoid and dysentery were developed in consecutive years. The Ottomans continued their vaccine research without interruption even during their last years and during times of war as well.

This legacy was preserved in the early years of the Republic and the importance paid to vaccines continued. The Hygiene Institute, which was established in 1928, did not restrict itself to meeting the inoculation needs of the country but also sent vaccines to China, which was experiencing an outbreak of cholera. The center was producing almost 20 types of vaccines toward the 1940s, including vaccines for scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Even the world’s first typhus vaccine was developed here. However, toward the end of the 1990s the production of vaccines was stopped at the Hygiene Institute, and therefore in Turkey.

If you are incredulous and research the reason behind this, you will come across a list of stories for such a decision, ranging from the updating of technology, to the vaccines getting damaged because the plug of the refrigerator was mistakenly pulled while leaving for the Bayram holidays. It is difficult to comprehend how a lock can be placed on the door of a science that the nation has devoted centuries to.

That lock was placed though… The Hygiene Institute was later transformed into a structure that carried out tests and controls rather than one that engaged in production. It was like a knife cutting through the development of vaccine technology in our country.

Toward the end of the 1990s, a sudden barrier was placed in front of our production of vaccines for humans, and the vaccine sector, which we had inherited and developed further, was dealt a blow. It was at exactly the time when the country was dragged into chaos… It is not for nothing that the 90s are called the “lost years.”

If it had received backing then, the Hygiene Institute would have been a pioneering center today. Pasteur’s student established the Merieux Biological Institute in 1887, and which we know today as the Sanofi Pasteur, is a world leader in vaccine technology. The same Pasteur who was richly rewarded by Abdulhamit II… Do I need to say anything more?

Let us leave aside the claim to be pioneers. If we were not obstructed in the 90s for unknown and actually known reasons, we would have been able to meet our own needs today, and to a large extent be free of having to depend on external sources.

Apart from the amounts we spend on importing vaccines, we have lost our capability and failed to progress in such a critical field. What will happen to us in case of war, now that we are dependent on external sources for vaccines? Particularly in such times when the threat of bioterrorism is high, the domestic production of vaccines is a national issue…

The issue is thought provoking and we see that our state has made some moves in recent years with regard to studies on a “national vaccine” program. While this is heartening, there remain a few problems that need to be negotiated.

This situation applies not just to Turkey but to all countries that are starting from scratch. In the last 20 years, developing countries like India, Brazil and Cuba have made serious moves and dealt with some of the problems in this regard and have been successful in the field of vaccines. We can draw hope from these examples but conditional upon “an integrated policy for developing vaccines.” The business of vaccine development is a drawn-out and multi-stage process… It is impossible to progress without synergy and the drawing up of plans…

There is a lot more I could write on this topic but I have to contend with summarizing. It is important that we prioritize our research and development map and the infrastructure and human resource requirements needed, and create conformity in this regard. Human resources are an extremely critical factor… The foundations of vaccine research require the creation of a web involving difficult disciplines. In this context, centralized research needs to be initiated and mechanisms implemented that draw young researchers to the field and entice those abroad to return.

The first step is to plan properly and implement it. Regulations, which are critical in vaccine research, come next. They don’t even come next. Right from the initial stages, they need to be implemented properly, and are unavoidable even if it is difficult.

We are late entrants to the game. It will take time to catch up. It can take five years, even 10, when starting from scratch and trying to reach somewhere. During this time others keep progressing. The downside is that there is a high possibility of ending up in the wrong place after traversing this long road.

It is in this context that it is important to observe the path taken in terms of transfer of technology, even if not in its entirety, by countries such as China, Brazil and Cuba in terms of their local vaccine research process. The transfer of technology is something that we too need to address as long as we introduce the right mechanism.

There is a lot more that could be written but the point I want to make is that as far as the “national vaccine” project is concerned, it is imperative that the approach of “it will fix itself as it progresses” is avoided…

With a policy that is properly implemented, why should we not be able to find the legacy we lost somewhere along the line?

Have a good weekend…