Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: On a day India reported administration of about 175 crores doses of the coronavirus vaccines since the launch of the vaccination drive in January 2021, reports came that only about half the population of the planet has been vaccinated so far.
Quoting “Our World in Data”, the media reported on Saturday that about 54 percent of the world’s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. And nearly 62 percent have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
However, the numbers show a stark global divide. Less than 11 percent of people have received at least one dose against Covid-19 in low-income countries. In the lower-middle-income nations, about 55 percent have received a dose while 80 percent of people in the upper-middle-income and high-income countries have done so.
Vaccine inequality, vaccine apartheid, and vaccine hesitancy have been some of the major concerns of governments, and the World Health Organization (WHO) for the past year.
Contrast this with vaccine-rich countries.
In some western countries, including the US, despite easy vaccine access, many have protested against its administration. In Canada, vaccine protesters forced even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into hibernation last week.
In contrast, public health experts, including the WHO, have been regularly warning that vaccine inequity was prolonging the pandemic.
For this vaccine inequity, they have criticized the US, and members of the European Union, for buying up most of the early global supply of coronavirus vaccines, the media reported.
COVAX, a United Nations-backed global vaccine-sharing initiative, was created in April 2020 to ensure access to countries that cannot afford it.
In the beginning, the initiative struggled to get supplies as rich countries stockpiled them. In mid-January this year, COVAX shipped its billionth dose. The WHO said they doubled the supplies to Africa.
But about 100 million Covid-19 vaccines, offered to the Third World nations were near expiry dates, forcing the countries to dump them, the UN’s children’s fund, UNICEF, said.
“Over 9.4 billion vaccine doses have now been administered globally. But 90 countries did not reach the target of vaccinating 40 percent of their populations by the end of 2021, and 36 of those countries have not yet vaccinated even 10 percent of their populations,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Over 85 percent of the population of Africa – about one billion people – is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. “We cannot end the acute phase of the pandemic unless we work together to close these gaps,” he warned.
Meanwhile, the WHO raised hopes recently when it said that Africa is on track to end the pandemic.
But, “continued vigilance is the key” to dealing with outbreaks and monitoring the possible emergence of new variants, it said.
“Although Africa still lags on vaccination, with only 11 percent of the adult population fully vaccinated, we now have a steady supply of doses flowing in,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s Regional Director for Africa.