The U.S. Promised 1.1 Billion Covid-19 Vaccine Doses To Poorer Countries. Here’s Where They Are Going.
Topline
The U.S. has promised to donate 1.1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to poorer international locations by the tip of 2022, a part of President Biden’s aim to vaccinate the world as rich international locations come below heavy fireplace for hoarding provides and rolling out booster photographs, and right here’s the place they’re going.
The U.S. has donated 200 million doses of Covid vaccine.
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Key Details
The highest 5 recipients are the Philippines (16.4 million), Pakistan (15.8 million), Bangladesh (11.5 million), Indonesia (9.9 million) and Vietnam (8.5 million), according to the Kaiser Household Basis, adopted carefully by Mexico (8.2 million), South Africa (7.9 million) and Nigeria (7.6 million).
Some 58% of U.S. donations have been delivered by means of the World Well being Group-led Covax vaccine sharing initiative, in accordance with Kaiser, with 42% donated on to international locations.
Nearly all of donated doses are mRNA photographs made by Pfizer and BioNTech (43%) or Moderna (35%), with Johnson & Johnson (16%) and AstraZeneca (1%) jabs making up the rest (5% are listed “unknown”).
Donation deliveries have been steadily ramping up since July—when 83.9 million had been delivered, greater than the next three months collectively—with 21.6 million delivered in August, 30.1 million in September and 31.4 million in October up to now.
Most doses have gone to decrease center revenue international locations (113.3 million), as categorized by the World Financial institution, in accordance with Kaiser, with 45.5 million shipped to higher center revenue international locations and 16 million to low revenue international locations.
Stunning Reality
As of October 22, the U.S. has donated 5.5 million doses to international locations the World Financial institution classifies as excessive revenue, in accordance with Kaiser. A current report by the Folks’s Vaccine Alliance, an activist group comprising organizations together with Amnesty Worldwide, Oxfam and UNAIDS, revealed that rich G7 international locations and Europe had donated 10 million vaccine doses on to different high-income international locations. Each the U.Okay. and Canada additionally acquired doses from the Covax initiative, round 500,000 and 1 million, respectively.
Huge Quantity
15 million. That’s no less than what number of doses of Covid-19 vaccine the U.S. has thrown away, according to CDC information between March and September.
Key Background
Whereas sufficient doses have been administered to totally vaccinate almost half the worldwide inhabitants, the overwhelming majority have been utilized by a handful of the world’s richest international locations. Many of those international locations, the U.S. included, have vaccinated low danger teams and are actually rolling out booster campaigns as poorer nations nonetheless battle to immunize a fraction of their inhabitants. Simply 5% of Africa is fully vaccinated towards Covid-19. Past equity, consultants imagine the uneven distribution might delay the pandemic for everybody and permit extra harmful virus variants to evolve. The Covax vaccine sharing initiative is hundreds of millions of vaccines in need of its aim and has been mired in difficulties amid funding points, hassle accessing vaccines and the reluctance of rich international locations to share provides. Western pharmaceutical firms have delivered a fraction—12%—of doses they pledged to promote to the initiative and rich nations have delivered simply 14% of doses promised to poorer nations between the tip of 2021 and 2022.
Additional Studying
Rich Nations Delivered Simply 14% Of Covid Vaccine Doses Promised To Poorer Nations, Report Finds (Forbes)
Will New Covid Treatments Be as Elusive for Poor Countries as Vaccines? (NYT)
Next Africa: The Terrible Cost of Vaccine Inequality (Bloomberg)
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