COVID-19 vaccine - Rich countries hoard, poor countries at risk

COVAX is a program to ensure vaccines are shared fairly among countries around the world. Although it is in progress, this plan still has some problems because by buying more vaccines for themselves, rich countries are harming COVAX and prolonging the pandemic.

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Some of the wealthier countries have been criticized for purchasing large quantities of vaccines, such as the UK. London has reached an agreement to buy enough vaccines for 5 times the population.

The countries explained that they had to win deals before they knew which vaccines were effective and promised to donate the rest. However, some experts say countries are unlikely to fund any doses of the vaccine until they know how long immunity lasts and against which variants.

By buying more vaccines for themselves, rich countries are harming COVAX and prolonging the pandemic.

Founded by the World Health Organization (WHO), the GAVI vaccine alliance and the CEPI epidemiological innovation alliance, COVAX - a global vaccine sharing program designed to make the Covid-19 vaccine accessible to everyone. Equally and fairly approach the vaccination race, especially with countries that cannot afford to buy vaccines in the open market.

COVAX negotiates to buy vaccines in bulk from pharmaceutical companies and can also receive vaccines funded by rich countries. Poorer countries get free vaccines from the initiative, and richer countries can also buy them from COVAX, as a way to diversify supplies.

However, this initiative encountered many obstacles. Although some rich countries have already started their vaccination campaigns, it was not until February 24 that the first batch of COVAX vaccine arrived in Ghana.

Why don't things move faster?

According to the AP, the answer is: Not enough vaccines!

The world's supply of Covid-19 vaccine is extremely limited, companies are struggling to produce more and experts predict that there will not be enough doses of vaccine for global vaccination until 2023, 2024.

While middle- and high-income countries have stockpiled more than 5 billion doses, COVAX has only reached agreements for more than 1 billion doses of vaccines and not all of these have been reliably contracted.

The initiative has received billions of dollars, but WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus points out that money means little without a vaccine to buy. He urged rich countries not to negotiate to buy more vaccines because this action would cripple agreements that COVAX already has.

Rich countries with more than 14% of the world population have bought more than 53% of vaccines, mainly from pre-order agreements.

Currently demand exceeds supply and even richer countries cannot accelerate vaccination. However, it is likely that they will do it in a period of months, for example the US is this summer. Meanwhile there are poor countries that will take years.

Give a vaccine is the initiative of British couple Stephen and Janice Lampard. With the goal of raising £100,000 through the GoFundMe page, the couple have been negotiating with health NGOs in low-income countries to help deliver doses of the vaccine.

Give a vaccine launched just before Christmas last year and has raised nearly £15,000 ($21,200). The donation is 15 pounds, equivalent to the value of one dose of vaccine.

But even global programs like COVAX can't provide enough vaccines, so individual efforts like Give Vaccine are hopeless, unable to meet the needs of the poor.

Although G7 member countries promised to ensure equitable access to a Covid-19 vaccine and pledged $7.5 billion for COVAX, there are not many details yet from countries including the UK, Germany and France. about when they will be ready to share their vaccine surplus.

While French President Macron promised to contribute 5% of the vaccine to COVAX, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said that "it is difficult to say when the UK will contribute and how".

Other rich countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Singapore have signed up to receive vaccines through COVAX even if they already have their own supplies.

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