One Shot to Live: The Global COVID-19 Vaccine Inequality
Written by Avantika Gokulnatha
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
Edited by Connie Quan
March 21, 2022
“My body, my choice”: co-opted by vaccine-deniers, this slogan has been paraded by those in the United States resisting the COVID-19 vaccine. This intersection between politics and public health has been in the limelight since the dawn of the COVID pandemic, with staunch supporters on either side pushing for or against the mass use of the vaccines.
While this debate is ongoing in wealthy countries, where any individual has theoretical access to a free vaccine, the image is entirely flipped in less wealthy nations: those who desperately want the vaccines for their safety have no access to vaccines anywhere. This discrepancy widens the divide in COVID’s impact on different regions of the globe and serves as a breeding ground for novel strains of the virus.
In high-income countries, 78 percent of the population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, in contrast to only 11 percent in low-income countries (Holder). This divide in vaccination rates is due to a failure in vaccine equity and fair distribution throughout the globe. Efforts made to bridge this discrepancy in vaccination rates are being stifled by a lack of funding, competition from higher-income nations, and vaccine production barriers.
In response to this vaccine disparity, an organization known as COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) was created by the World Health Organization in partnership with UNICEF and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations to support the commitment by high-income nations to vaccinate 20% of the population in 92 of the poorest countries (Asundi, Archana et al.). Yet, it has been unable to progress due to a few instrumental factors.
One of the most significant barriers is COVAX’s inability to compete with higher income nations, who have already purchased a large majority of the vaccines available on the market. Many high-income nations have formed deals with vaccine manufacturers, securing a steady supply of vaccines for their own citizens, leaving nations without the ability to do so behind. The injustice of this stockpiling of vaccines is further pronounced by the fact that wealthier countries are predicted to have nearly 1 billion vaccines in surplus. In addition, centers that allow for the production of the complex vaccines are highly concentrated in developed nations, preventing lower-income nations from producing vaccines for themselves.
The vaccination rate of a country as distant as Mali may seem to have little impact on the grand scheme of the world’s recovery from the COVID pandemic, but the big picture is catastrophic. The lack of vaccination puts the world at risk for a novel strain to mutate into existence, burdens healthcare systems, disrupts global education, exacerbates poverty and food insecurity, and plummets national economies. In fact, reports estimate that the lack of vaccination in the world’s poorest countries causes a global net loss of $153 billion a year in GDP (Asundi et al., 2021). COVID-19 is a battle that requires a united front to overcome, and until that happens, our world will never truly be free from the grips of COVID.
References
Asundi, Archana, et al (July 2021). “Global COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity: The Scope, the Impact, and the Challenges.” Cell Host & Microbe, no. 7, Elsevier BV, pp. 1036–39. Crossref, doi:10.1016/j.chom.2021.06.007.
Holder, Josh. (2021, January 29). Covid World Vaccination Tracker - The New York Times. The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html
Image Source: "Vaccination” by Ronstick licensed under CC0