Poor Countries Fall Behind In Race To Reserve COVID-19 Vaccine

Rich countries are rapidly claiming the world’s lion’s share of future doses of COVID-19 vaccine, creating deep inequalities in global distribution.

Despite an international agreement to allocate the vaccine equitably around the world, billions of people in poor and middle-income countries might not be immunized until 2023 or even 2024, researchers at Duke University predict.

One reason is tied to the financial might of upper-income nations. The world has a limited capacity to manufacture any forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines each year. As of October, wealthy countries have claimed the vast majority of that capacity, leaving very little vaccine for low-income countries. Specifically, rich countries have already purchased, or are in the process of purchasing, more than 5 billion doses of candidate vaccines before clinical trials have completed. India has claimed another 1.6 billion doses, and Brazil has 200 million. Fewer than 800 million doses have been earmarked for the world’s poorest countries.