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Bloomberg
Enough vaccines have now been administered to fully vaccinate about five per cent of the global population — but the distribution has been lopsided. Most vaccines are going to the wealthiest countries.
As of Thursday, 40 per cent of the Covid-19 vaccines administered globally have gone to people in 27 wealthy nations that represent 11 per cent of the global population. Countries that make up the least-wealthy 11 per cent have gotten just 1.6 per cent of Covid-19 vaccines administered so far, according to an analysis of data collected by the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. In other words, countries with the highest incomes are vaccinating 25 times faster than those with the lowest. Bloomberg’s database of Covid-19 vaccinations has tracked more than 726 million doses administered in 154 countries.
The U.S., for example, has 24 per cent of the world’s vaccinations but just 4.3 per cent of the population, while Pakistan has 0.1 per cent of the vaccine coverage for 2.7 per cent of the global population. The pattern is repeated across the globe and follows efforts by wealthy countries to pre-purchase billions of doses of vaccines, enough to cover their populations several times over.
The U.S. is on track to cover 75 per cent of its residents in the next three months. Meanwhile, nearly half of countries still haven’t reached 1 per cent of their populations. The disparity calculations don’t include more than 40 countries, mostly among the world’s poorest, that don’t yet have public vaccination data.
A world of difference
There’s no mechanism to ensure equitable distribution worldwide. If all of the world’s vaccines were distributed based on population, the U.S. would have administered nearly six times its fair share. . Topping the list are the UAE and Israel, with nine and 12 times their population-based share, respectively.
The world’s least wealthy continent, Africa, is also the least vaccinated. Of its 54 countries, only three have have inoculated more than 1 per cent of their populations.
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