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LONDON. – As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, with new, more infectious variants complicating responses to outbreaks, governments are racing to roll out vaccinations.
With more than 57 million vaccine doses administered, the United States is leading the way in the total number of shots administered, followed by China and the European Union.
The United Arab Emirates and Israel have administered at least one dose to the highest proportion of their populations, 81 and 54 percent respectively.
In comparison, lower- and middle-income economies have struggled. Addressing the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres said a total of 130 countries had not administered a single dose.
The stark disparity in vaccination rates between high- and low-income economies has led the UN to call for greater vaccine equity on a global scale and renew warnings against so-called “vaccine nationalism” and “vaccine hoarding”.
In his address to the UN Security Council, Guterres slammed the global distribution of vaccines as “wildly uneven and unfair”, noting that 10 countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccine doses.
“At this critical moment, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community,” he said.
On Friday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to give “the majority of any future surplus vaccines” to the UN-backed COVAX vaccine sharing initiative, designed to provide doses to lower-income countries.
Shortly after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, scientists began work to develop vaccines to protect against the coronavirus. Global health experts warned that any vaccines should be made available equally to all countries.
Within months, high-income countries had struck deals with drug companies working on vaccine candidates, securing hundreds of millions of future doses.
“Rich countries have signed pre-purchase agreements with vaccine manufacturers,” Georgetown Law global health professor Lawrence Gostin said. “So [they] have bought up most of the world’s vaccine supplies.”
According to ONE, a group that campaigns against poverty, people from lower-income countries may not be able to be vaccinated this year because the world’s richest countries have bought one billion more doses than their citizens need.
Some countries have secured enough supplies to vaccinate their populations more than once. The countries with the most coverage per capita are: Canada with 500 percent of its population covered, the United Kingdom with 327 percent, Chile with 244 percent, New Zealand with 242 percent and Australia with 226 percent.
The rush to secure a wide range of vaccines early was partially driven by a lack of knowledge as to which vaccines would prove effective against the virus.
Gostin noted that governments also face political pressure to protect their populations first.
“Governments are under enormous pressure to prioritise their own populations. So, prioritising one’s own population is understandable,” he said.
“But all human beings have equal worth, and the selfish hoarding of vaccines is, in my opinion, unethical,” Gostin said.
Northeastern University School of Law Professor Brook Baker said that inoculating the population of a single country would not protect them if it meant that the virus continues to spread elsewhere unchecked.
“You’re not protecting your citizens; you’re giving your citizens an illusion that you’re protecting them,” Baker said. – Al Jazeera.
Online Reporter