Scientists have warned for months that coronavirus will thrive as long as vast parts of the world lack vaccines. The hoarding of limited COVID-19 shots by rich countries which has created virtual vaccine deserts in many poorer ones threatens the entire globe. The virus spreads among unvaccinated populations and gives it opportunities to mutate and become more dangerous, prolonging the pandemic for everyone.
The vaccine inequality is more evident in Africa, where under 7% of the population is vaccinated. The COVAX initiative was supposed to avoid such inequality but is woefully short of shots and has already abandoned its initial goal of 2 billion doses. Even to reach its scaled-back target of distributing 1.4 billion doses by the end of 2021, it must ship more than 25 million doses every day.
IMF calculations show that just 13% of vaccines COVAX contracted for and 12% of promised donations have actually been delivered.
While poor countries suffer due to lack of vaccines, many rich nations who have an abundance of shots are now offering booster shots to their population. WHO has discouraged this practice as every booster is essentially a dose that is not going to someone who’s never even gotten their first shot. Despite the U.N. health agency’s appeal to countries to declare a moratorium on booster shots until the end of the year, more than 60 countries are now administering them.
In mid-2021, the European Union pledged to ship 100 million vaccines to Africa by the end of the year but only 1/20 of that amount was actually sent out.
Rich countries are also accused of dumping older or lesser quality vaccines on poor countries thus undermining the whole project. Malawi, South Sudan and Congo have reported that they would not be able to administer doses before they expired as they were sent late.
Palak Dogra 
Saisha Kamla Dudha 
Sahana A