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Stalled at first jab: Vaccine shortages hit poor countries - The Associated Press
Apr 10, 2021 1 min, 36 secs

COVAX, the global initiative to provide vaccines to countries lacking the clout to negotiate for scarce supplies on their own, has in the past week shipped more than 25,000 doses to low-income countries only twice on any given day.

During the past two weeks, according to data compiled daily by UNICEF, fewer than 2 million COVAX doses in total were cleared for shipment to 92 countries in the developing world — the same amount injected in Britain alone.

The vaccine shortage stems mostly from India’s decision to stop exporting vaccines from its Serum Institute factory, which produces the overwhelming majority of the AstraZeneca doses that COVAX counted on to supply around a third of the global population at a time coronavirus is spiking worldwide.

Supplies are dwindling in some of the first countries to receive COVAX shipments, and the expected delivery of second doses in the 12-week window currently recommended is now in doubt.

“In the absence of high vaccination coverage globally, we risk dragging out the pandemic for several more years,” said Lavanya Vasudevan, an assistant professor at Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

Earlier this month, the WHO appealed to rich countries to urgently share 10 million doses to meet the U.N.

Bilateral donations of doses tend to go along political lines, rather than to countries with the most infections, and they aren’t nearly enough to compensate for the goals that COVAX has set out.

Think Global Health, a data site managed by the Council on Foreign Relations, identified 19 countries that have donated a total of 27.5 million doses to 102 nations as of Thursday.

On Thursday, the agencies behind COVAX — WHO, vaccines alliance GAVI and CEPI, a coalition for epidemic preparedness — celebrated their delivery of 38 million lifesaving vaccines to more than 100 countries.

“Celebrating doses sufficient for only 19 million people, or 0.25% of global population, is tone deaf,” he said, adding it was time for WHO and partners to be more honest with countries.

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