Vaccines rolling out at variable pace

LONDON: Nations around the world are rolling out Covid19 vaccine programmes, some countries moving quicker than others.

Israel leads the global vaccine race with 12% of the population given a jab, or more than a million people.

Israel began vaccinating citizens on December 19. About 150,000 people received doses each day.

Israel is followed by Bahrain (3.5% of the population) and the UK (1.47%) as the nations with the most people vaccinated, a global tracking website affiliated with Oxford University said.

In the UK, hundreds of new vaccination sites were due to be operational as the NHS ramped up its programme with the justapproved Oxford University and AstraZeneca jab. More than 500,000 doses of the vaccine were due to be available across the UK from today, with vulnerable groups identified as the priority for immunisation.

In Germany, more than 130,000 people were immunised before the end of the year. However, its programme has been criticised by the leftwing Die Linke party, which said the vaccine was ‘‘scarce’’ and the rollout sloppy. Similar criticisms have been voiced in France.

The European Union was slower than the UK or the US in approving the vaccines. It came on December 21, while UK regulators gave their approval to the Pfizer compound on December 2 and in the US on December 11.

In Russia, more than 800,000 people have been inoculated so far and more than 1.5 million vaccine doses have been dispatched, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said yesterday.

India yesterday approved the emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and the other by local company Bharat Biotech and a staterun institute.