A United Front against COVID-19
As on September 29, 2021, 44.9 per cent of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine with 33.04 per cent share of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19. 6.2 billion doses have been administered globally, and 26.02 million are now being administered each day. Only 2.3 per cent of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.
In Asia, as of September 28, Singapore is the leading country with 79.39 per cent share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 (76.59 per cent fully vaccinated) (September 26) followed by China 76.22 per cent (70.78 per cent) (as on September 18), Japan 69.98 per cent (59 per cent), India 46.07 per cent (16.61 per cent), Indonesia 32.04 per cent (17.97 per cent), Vietnam 31.52 per cent (8.44 per cent) (September 26), Pakistan 25.94 per cent (12.17 per cent), the Philippines 22.69 per cent (14.53 per cent) (September 9) and Bangladesh 14.96 per cent (9.98 per cent), according to Our World in Data.
Realising the need to support the low- and lower-middle-income countries, on September 8, 2020, the world came together to support COVAX, a multilateral initiative aimed at guaranteeing global access to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. In the last two months, COVAX has already achieved significant progress: more than
$10 billion has been raised; legally-binding commitments for up to 4.5 billion doses of vaccine; 240 million doses have been delivered to 139 countries in just six months. Yet the global picture of access to COVID-19 vaccines is unacceptable. Only 20 per cent of people in low- and lower-middle-income countries have received a first dose of vaccine compared to 80 per cent in high- and uppermiddle income countries.
According to COVAX’s latest Supply Forecast, it expects to have access to 1.425 billion doses of vaccine in 2021, in the most likely scenario and in the absence of urgent action by producers and high-coverage countries to prioritise COVAX. Of these doses, approximately 1.2 billion will be available for the lower income economies participating in the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). This is enough to protect 20 per cent of the population, or 40 per cent of all adults; in all 92 AMC economies with the exception of India. Over 200 million doses will be allocated to self-financing participants. The key COVAX milestone of 2 billion doses released for delivery is now expected to be reached in the first quarter of 2022.
Responding to the global need, leaders from across the world attended the Global COVID-19 Summit on September 22, hosted by Joe Biden, President of the United States of America. The leaders have again underlined their commitment to ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all countries through COVAX – noting that equitable access is essential to end the acute stage of the pandemic.
The commitments made at the Summit offer the promise of reaching the targets that the World Health Organisation and its partners have set to vaccinate 40 per cent of the population of all countries by the end of 2021 and 70 per cent by the middle of next year. Responding to the global support, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, DirectorGeneral, World Health Organisation (WHO) said “To reach this year’s target, we need 2 billion doses for low- and lower- middle income countries now. To quote President Biden, “we can do this.”
President Biden in his remarks pointed out “We will work with global vaccine manufacturers to expand global and regional manufacturing for mRNA, viral vector, and/ or protein subunit COVID-19 vaccines and to enhance transparency of data on production and projections for dose manufacturing.”
But it is clear that commitments alone won’t save lives, stop transmission, immunise people, scale up manufacturing capacity, and prepare the world to prevent future health emergencies. What is needed now – finally – is for commitments to turn into immediate actions to equitably end the pandemic.