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Only 0.3% of vaccine supply going to low-income countries

Only 0.3% of current vaccine supply for Covid-19 is going to low-income countries, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In an opening statement on 14 May, the WHO directorgeneral criticised the vaccine strategies of rich countries, where we are now seeing lower risk groups being vaccinated against Covid-19. Countries such as the UK, US and those in the EU have purchased the majority of vaccine supply for Covid-19, and could vaccinate their entire populations more than once, if necessary.

Comparatively, only around 3% of the population in India have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. So far it’s estimated that the country has enough Covid-19 vaccines to vaccinate around 8% of its population. “I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to Covax.

“Because in low and lower-middle income countries, vaccine supply has not been enough to even immunize health and care workers, and hospitals are being inundated with people that need lifesaving care urgently,” Dr Tedros said. Of particular concern is in India, where cases of Covid-19 rose drastically between April-May, bringing the total number of deaths to over 270,000 in the country.

The WHO directorgeneral also pointed out the spikes we’re seeing in countries including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. “Some countries in the Americas still have high numbers of cases and as a region, the Americas accounted for 40% of all Covid-19 deaths last week. There are also spikes in some countries in Africa,” he added.

Dr Tedros is urging countries to donate to the Covax scheme, which was set up to help equitably distribute Covid-19 vaccines and therapies around the world – especially to lowand-middle income countries. Recently, the scheme has saw contributions from countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is set to donate 1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Covax, and Spain, which will donate at least 7.5 million vaccine doses to Latin American and Caribbean countries through Covax.

“International cooperation is a really important mechanism that we as government officials have been speaking about for decades. The pandemic has shown us what can happen when we truly do cooperate with one another, but also what doesn’t happen when we don’t,” said H.E. Reem al Hashimy, UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation.

Croatia too has pledged to share 50,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo, and committed €500,000 (US$ 600,000) to Covax.

“We shall continue to be one of the countries that supports these activities, both on the national level, but also at the European and global level, too,” said H.E. Andrej Plenković Prime Minister of Croatia.

Did you know?

High income countries have procured 5.9 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines. The African Union, Syria and Somalia have procured 270 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines. The Covax scheme has procured 2.7 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines.