Vaccine Access in Third World Countries

For wealthier countries, it seems a way out of the COVID19 pandemic is clear and in view, but for lower-income countries a way out is not even in sight.

COVAX is a global effort to ensure COVID19 vaccines are fairly shared across all countries, rich and poor. It is a collaboration between the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which was set up in April 2020. The aim is to ensure 2 billion doses of vaccine are shared to the world’s 92 poorest countries by the end of 2021.

Currently, more than 700 million vaccine doses have been administered globally. Africa accounts for less than 2% of the total, compared to Europe’s 20% share. The UK’s vaccination scheme has been particularly successful and has so far administered over 53 million doses.

There is a glaring disparity between rich and poor countries with the obtaining of vaccines; wealthier countries are able to buy and invest in more vaccines than lower-income countries. “Rich nations representing just 14% of the world’s population had bought up more than half (53%) of all the most promising vaccines”, The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a campaign group, said in December.

COVAX currently faces many challenges to achieve their aim of 2 billion doses by the end of 2021. 237 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were due to be allocated between February and May, however only 53.8 million doses had been delivered to 121 countries. India is one of the largest providers of vaccine doses to the COVAX scheme but they have recently placed an export ban due to their current crisis, and understandably their vaccine doses are going to their own population. As a result, places like Africa may not receive any more doses until June which leaves their population vulnerable to COVID19 and without any potential relief from the pandemic any time soon.

There is also the issue of the increasing number of counterfeit vaccines in circulation, particularly in Africa, which is a hotspot for fake medications already; 42% of all counterfeit medications reported to WHO between 2013 and 2017 were from Africa. South African police seized 2,400 fake COVID19 vaccine doses and large quantities of counterfeit N95 face masks in November. The raid actually led to the identification of a network manufacturing fake vaccines in China; 80 arrests were made and more than 3000 fake vaccines were removed.

Getting vaccine doses to lower-income countries is just the first step, each country faces its own individual logistical challenges. Maintaining a cold chain can be particularly difficult in countries where there are poor road networks, for example in South Sudan. Furthermore, it will be difficult to implement vaccination programmes in countries where the health infrastructure and systems in place are severely underfunded with poor resources.