12 | New Scientist | 6 February 2021
TO UNDERSTAND how unequally
covid-19 vaccines are being rolled
out around the world, look to
Guinea. The World Health
Organization says the West
African state had administered
just 25 doses as of 18 January.
By comparison, 4.72 million had
been given in the UK alone.
The reality is that while the
EU negotiates vaccine deliveries
with AstraZeneca and the US
government weighs up how
many millions of people should
be vaccinated daily, many
middle-income countries have
only just begun roll-outs. Most
low-income ones will take months
to get started.
For Kate Elder at the non-profit
organisation Médecins Sans
Frontières, the day UK resident
Margaret Keenan became the
first person in the world to be
vaccinated, in December, was the
day countries failed to deliver on
earlier promises of vaccine equity.
“Delivering equity means
vaccines are available in low-
income countries at the same
time as high-income countries,”
she says.
India, Mexico, Indonesia,
Argentina and other lower-middle
and upper-middle-income
countries have begun
immunisation programmes
by buying a supply of vaccines.
Some middle-income countries
have “been supported with the
Chinese or Russian vaccines”,
says Elizabeth Mason at the
UN-appointed Independent
Accountability Panel.
However, most low-income
countries cannot afford to buy
vaccines. “The state of play is
devastating because there is no
state of play,” says Elder. Those
countries are waiting on COVAX,
a scheme backed by the World
Health Organization (WHO)
that aims to vaccinate 20 percent of participating countries’
populations in the long run. The
initiative said on 22 January that
the first deliveries will come by the
end of February, and claimed it is
on track to hit its goal of 2 billion
doses by the end of the year (see
“Vaccines for all”, page 21).
Observers are split on how
realistic that is. “We expectdelays to COVAX. We think the
commitments will be very difficult
to meet,” says Agathe Demarais at
the Economist Intelligence Unit,
a UK-based research group. Of the
2 billion doses Pfizer said it would
make for the world this year, only
40 million have been agreed for
COVAX. Despite raising more than
$2 billion, COVAX is “obviously not
very attractive to pharmaceutical
corporations”, says Elder. Mason is
more optimistic, and says COVAX
is “moving at a good speed”.
It isn’t the only effort. An
African Union-led initiative
recently secured agreements
for 270 million vaccine doses
from a variety of manufacturers.
However, Richard Mihigo at the
WHO told a press conference on
28 January: “We knew very well
some of these doses may notbecome available soon.”
Mihigo said many African
countries will need different
types of vaccines to successfully
vaccinate beyond capital cities.
Capitals will have storage that can
keep Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine at
-70°C, for example, while more
remote areas may need vaccines
that don’t need to be stored at
such temperatures, such asOxford/AstraZeneca’s, although
that still requires two doses.
The single-dose vaccine from US
firm Johnson & Johnson will be
“very interesting” for logistical
reasons in Africa, Mihigo said. On
29 January, the firm announced
that its vaccine was 66 per cent
effective in clinical trials.
Overall, due to difficulties withPeople disinfecting
streets and shops
in Guinea25
Doses of coronavirus vaccine
given in Guinea as of 18 JanuaryNews Coronavirus
How many covid-19 vaccines have been given out?
This map shows the number of individual vaccine doses administered per 100 people in a country’s total population.
This may not equal the total number of people vaccinated as some vaccines require multiple dosesVaccinesAdam VaughanGlobal vaccine inequality
Mass immunisation may not happen until 2024, if at all, in places
CE
LL
OUBINAN
I/A
FP
VIAGETT
Y^ IMAGES