Covid-19 Vaccinations Around the World

Just over one year ago, governments around the world began authorizing the use of the first Covid-19 vaccines. They protect against dangerous symptoms of the virus that causes the illness. Since Covid-19 is a global crisis, the World Health Organization and other groups developed a program called COVAX to try to ensure the equal distribution of vaccines among all nations. 

Nearly every country in the world joined the program. Here’s how it would work: Wealthier countries in the program, like the U.S., China, and France, and charitable organizations would contribute money. COVAX would use the funds to purchase vaccines from pharmaceutical companies. Then COVAX would provide the vaccines to all member nations in the program—both rich and poor. This would ensure that every country—developing nations included—could receive Covid-19 vaccines.

Unfortunately, “wealthy countries didn’t treat COVAX like an equalizer,” says Andrea Taylor, an expert in global health at Duke University in North Carolina. While they did contribute money to the program, they didn’t rely on it themselves. Instead of getting their vaccines from COVAX, wealthy countries bought their own doses directly from pharmacetical companies. That left hardly any vaccines for COVAX to purchase and distribute, says Taylor. 

By the end of 2021, experts estimate that wealthy countries will have 1.2 billion unused doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, and that the doses will slowly be redistributed to countries in need. There were other problems the COVAX program encountered as well. Rising Covid-19 cases, a new version of the virus, and misinformation have also hampered vaccine use and distribution in different parts of the world.

COVAX relied heavily on India as its main source of vaccines. The country produces more vaccines than any other nation in the world. “It’s the world’s vaccine manufacturing house,” says Abhishek Pandey, an infectious disease researcher at Yale University in Connecticut.

But this past April, a massive wave of infections hit India, resulting in at least 300,000 deaths. The country stopped shipping vaccines to other countries in an effort to prioritize vacination of Indian citizens. 

By October, 2021, India began exporting vaccines to other countries once again—but the nation still has not started shipping to COVAX. They are expected to begin contributing again in the coming weeks. The U.S. and other wealthier nations have begun donating their surplus vaccine doses to COVAX, adding to the available supply. 

With the first vaccine shipments going primarily to wealthy countries, and then because of the outbreak in India, developing parts of the world have been left far behind in the global vaccine rollout. That includes Africa, whose countries had banded together to purchase vaccines directly from vaccine manufacturers to supplement the free vaccine allotments from COVAX that most African countries were promised. 

The continent suffered another blow when a new, more contagious variant, or form, of the virus that causes Covid-19 began infecting people there. Last July, the first Covid-19 cases caused by the Delta variant were reported in Africa. This mutated, or changed, version of the virus was spreading more quickly than previous versions and was considered more dangerous (see “What Are Covid-19 Variants?”, Science World, October 19, 2021). “Even young people were getting sick and dying,” says Robert Kelty. He’s the CEO of Amref Health Africa, a development organization that provides health care services to people in Africa. 

In African countries like Namibia and Tanzania, a higher percentage of people diagnosed with Covid-19 were dying of the disease than anywhere else in the world. Those outbreaks have since died down, but vaccination remains slow on the continent.

Both developed and developing nations alike faced another issue when it came to getting people vaccinated: misinformation. In Brazil, the largest country in South America, some members of the government, including the country’s president, downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. But the reality was much different. Brazil experienced more than 600,000 Covid-19 deaths—the second-highest number in the world after that of the U.S. 

Given the mixed messages, Brazilians were unsure what to believe. “People had no idea which way was up,” says global health expert Taylor. Because of the government’s stance, Brazil delayed ordering doses of Covid-19 vaccines. When they did arrive, public health agencies encouraged people to get vaccinated. People listened. By August, health officials were administering more than 2 million doses a day.

Even in places like North America and Europe, which have plenty of doses to go around, misinformation has hindered vaccine rollouts. Some people in these areas are still hesitant to get vaccinated, citing concerns about vaccine safety. False claims about the vaccine have been widely circulated on social media and even by some government officials.

To persuade people to get vaccinated, some places are offering incentives, like gift cards in Sweden, cars in Russia, and soccer tickets in the United Kingdom. Other places are requiring vaccines for people to be able to attend public events. In France, people must show proof of vaccination to enter most public places, like museums and restaurants. On the day the requirement was announced, 1.3 million French people made vaccine appointments.

Getting vaccinated can protect people, no matter where they live, says Taylor. Not only do Covid-19 vaccines lessen the chance of severe sickness and death in the places where they’re administered, they also protect people traveling from place to place. And slowing the spread of the disease they may prevent more new variants—like Delta and the highly infectious Omicron variant—from emerging. The more Covid-19 spreads, the more chances the virus has to mutate and infect more people. The countries of the world are interconnected, which means “we can’t end the pandemic at home until we end it everywhere,” says Taylor.