In the race between infection and injection, the injection has lost. Public health experts estimate that approximately 70% of the world’s ...
In the race between infection and injection, the injection has lost.
Public health experts estimate that approximately 70% of the world’s 7.9 billion people must be fully vaccinated to end the Covid-19 pandemic. As of June 21, 10.04% of the global population had been fully vaccinated, nearly all of them in rich countries.
Only 0.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.
I am a scholar of global health who specialises in health care inequities. Using a data set on vaccine distribution compiled by the Global Health Innovation Center’s Launch and Scale Speedometer at Duke University in the United States, I analysed what the global vaccine access gap means for the world.
Global health crisis
Supply is not the main reason some countries are able to vaccinate their populations while others experience severe disease outbreaks – distribution is.
Many rich countries pursued a strategy of overbuying Covid-19 vaccine doses in advance. My analyses demonstrate that the United States, for example, has procured 1.2 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses, or 3.7 doses per person. Canada has ordered 381 million doses. Every Canadian could be vaccinated five times over with the two doses needed.
Overall, countries representing just one-seventh of the world’s population had reserved more than half of all vaccines available by June. That has made it very difficult for the remaining countries to procure...
