Of the 225m vaccines administered so far, most have been in a handful of rich nations. This has to change, for all our sakes
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is director general of the World Health Organization
Vaccines manufactured in India for the global vaccine access programme, Covax, have reached Ghana, Ivory Coast and Colombia over the past 10 days. This was undoubtedly a moment of celebration that the miracle of science was being shared – but it was offset by the shame that many countries hit hard during the pandemic have still not received any vaccines.
Safe and effective vaccines have been developed and approved at record speed, giving us a crucial new way, in addition to traditional public health measures, to protect people from the virus. Now we must ensure they’re available to everyone, everywhere. Sharing doses, boosting manufacturing by removing barriers and ensuring that we use data effectively to target left-behind communities is key to ending this crisis.
