Vaccine Inequity: The World’s Biggest Obstacle to Ending COVID-19

Cole Burston/Associated Press

The inequitable distribution of COVID vaccines has been a leading concern of the World Health Organization (‘WHO’) since rollout programs began in late 2020. The WHO suspects that if vaccines were distributed equitably, all health workers and seniors—two groups that are most vulnerable and frequently exposed to COVID-19—would be vaccinated across the world. However, upper-middle and high-income countries have received a disproportionately higher percentage of the COVID vaccines than low-income countries. 

“Vaccine inequity is the world’s biggest obstacle to ending this pandemic and recovering from COVID-19,” Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned, “The longer vaccine inequity persists, the more opportunity this virus has to spread and evolve in ways we cannot predict nor prevent. We are all in this together.”

The WHO announced in early 2021 that they aim to have 10 per cent of every country’s population vaccinated by September, 40 per cent by the end of the year, and 70 per cent by mid-2022. 56 countries failed to reach September 2021’s goal, and the statistics continue to fall short of the organization’s initial plans. 

According to the Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity, 68.18 per cent of wealthier countries have been vaccinated with at least one dose, while only 12.11 per cent have in low-income countries as of February 9, 2022. WHO also reported that poorer nations have received only 0.6 per cent of the 8 billion shots that have been administered internationally. 

A contributing factor to this inequity is “vaccine nationalism.” This phenomenon refers to the tendency of vaccine-producing countries to restrict distribution to other nations. “No country can boost its way out of the pandemic,” Tedros emphasized in a press briefing in December 2021, later adding, “vaccine nationalism will prolong the pandemic, not shorten it.”

Additionally, the cost of COVID vaccines are high in comparison to other vaccines, reducing its accessibility to certain countries. The United Nations Development Programme reported on their Data Futures Platform that the vaccines are an average of $2 to $40 USD per dose, with a unit delivery fee of approximately $3.70. WHO has explained that low-income countries must increase their healthcare budget by 30 to 60 per cent in order to vaccinate 70 per cent of their population, while high-income countries are only expected to increase theirs by 0.8 per cent to achieve the same vaccination rate. 

Experts fear that if COVID vaccine inequity persists and the pandemic draws out, new strains of the virus will arise.“Inequitable vaccine distribution…is allowing even more deadly variants to emerge and spread across the globe,” the United Nations’ (‘UN’) website reads. 

This inequity also presents severe economic issues throughout the world. The UN expects low-income countries to feel the negative economic effects of COVID until 2024. Meanwhile, high-income countries are generally predicted to return to pre-COVID economic conditions by the end of this year. 

To help mitigate vaccine inequity, the United Nations Children’s Fund (‘UNICEF’), with help from Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, WHO and CEPI created COVAX, an abbreviation for COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access. This initiative is dedicated to accelerating the distribution of COVID vaccines, and ensuring they are accessible to countries “based on need and not purchasing power.” They aid in the distribution to 80 per cent of the world’s population. 

Wealthier countries, including Canada, the UK and Japan, have pledged to donate money and vaccine doses to low-income countries through the initiative. The US has contributed the most, donating $4 billion and having shipped 235 million of the 1.1 billion doses that they pledged. “To beat the pandemic here, we need to beat it everywhere,” US President Joe Biden said at the Global COVID-19 Summit in September of 2021. 

However, the public has criticized COVAX for being slower in its distributions than it has claimed it would be. Upon its creation, COVAX stated that they would provide two million doses internationally in 2021. By January 15, 2022, COVAX had only supplied their billionth dose, one-half of the amount they initially predicted they would supply, and approximately one-fourth of the 4.6 billion doses previously purchased by high-income nations, as reported by Duke University.