Covid-19 vaccination race: the countries winning and losing to vaccine inequality

Global vaccine rollouts ongoing, the inequality of vaccination access has revealed itself. As high-income countries near the vaccination of 20% of their populations at the start of the year, that is the best that poorer nations can only hope for by the end of 2021. Which countries have the highest vaccination rates? And who is missing out?

Right now, Israel leads the vaccination race with the highest percentage of population vaccinated. Recently reaching the 2 million milestone, 22% of the population is now vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. UAE and Bahrain are second and third respectively. Both are also using the US-German vaccine in addition to China’s Sinopharm. They were among the first countries in the world to approve the Sinopharm drug. Bahrain was also the second after the UK to approve Pfizer’s. In fact, the UK trails behind Bahrain. With the fourth-highest vaccination rate, the UK was the first country to begin vaccine rollouts of Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca in the span of a month.

A historic race.

The vaccine rollouts present historic challenges, and the outbreak of Covid-19 has triggered the start of many countries’ biggest vaccination programmes. It is definitely the NHS’s “largest-scale” operation of this sort, according to its national medical director. It is perhaps because of this that partnerships have formed. Claiming the approach ensures equal access, the European Commission coordinates the purchases of all 27 EU members and has pushed for this method since June. Vaccine distribution across the EU started at the end of December and the European Commission’s President Von der Leyen labelled it a “touching moment of unity“. A unity that hangs on the balance after, as reported early last week, Germany secured millions of doses for itself.

For now, Denmark tops the EU vaccination rates, ahead of Slovenia and Italy. However, outside the top five, positions could greatly vary. For instance, a delay in Pfizer’s distributions has slowed down an already sluggish pace for the EU. With no other vaccines approved at EU-scale, they are solely relying on Pfizer which has caused fears that doses arriving will be too late for the second shot. The instability of distributions also revealed the issue of vaccine reservations. A BMJ study has highlighted how high-income countries have secured access to the vaccine at the expense of vaccination inequality and uncertainty for the rest of the world.

Continuing historic inequality.

Online publication, The Intercept, ended 2020 by warning of an incoming ‘vaccine apartheid’. Countries that hosted vaccine trials are losing out to richer countries. Indeed, Pfizer-BioNTech hosted trials in Argentina, South Africa, Turkey, the US, and Germany, and only the latter two are front runners in the vaccination race. The US for example, has the fifth-fastest vaccination rate, while Germany is well-positioned within the EU. Oxfam and Global Justice Now report that rich countries acquired 96% of Pfizer’s vaccines, with Moderna’s entire supply having been secured by the most affluent. Other less fortunate countries must rely on the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and the World Health Organisation’s COVAX programme.

“The ethical problem this creates — that people in developing countries have less access to medical breakthroughs despite shouldering a disproportionate share of the risk that enables their development — far predates the coronavirus pandemic.”

— The Intercept (@theintercept) December 31, 2020

The COVAX programme aims to have two billion doses from its vaccine approvals ready to distribute by the end of the year. It will inoculate at least 20% of the populations of subscribed countries. This would mean the prioritized groups of health workers, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. Meanwhile, Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, claimed last August that Argentina would ensure “timely and efficient access [of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine] for all of Latin America“. Timings are uncertain though as he stated vaccines would arrive six to 12 months earlier. But campaigners warn that while Oxford-AstraZeneca has pledged 64% of its doses to the less wealthy, “they can still only reach 18% of the world’s population next year at most.” This is why The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition between Oxfam and UNAIDS, amongst others, is calling for all pharmaceutical companies to openly share their technology for vaccine production.

Moving forward.

In a recently shared tweet in favour of the #PeoplesVaccine campaign, UNAIDS cautions against repeating the mistakes made during the HIV pandemic. The Director-General of the World Health Organization also issued a warning about the imminent “catastrophic moral failure” earlier this week. The inequality in the global COVID-19 vaccination rollout and vaccine reservations is being grasped. Whether the measures to counter it will be adequate remains to be seen.

Nerea Zambrano

Image courtesy of little plant on Unsplash Image license found here.This image has in no way been altered.