Wealthy nations stockpiling Covid-19 vaccine to cover their whole population multiple times, warns US study

The growing tendency to stockpile the COVID vaccine could raise the prospect that the disease could spread for years to come. The researchers at Duke University concluded that wealthy nations have purchased as many vaccine doses as possible to increase their chances of covering their whole population multiple times.

New Delhi: As people across the globe eagerly await an effective vaccine against the deadly coronavirus, a new study in the United States has claimed that the wealthy nations are stockpiling the Covid-19 vaccines to cover their whole population multiple times. The study claims that rich countries have pre-ordered more than three billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines, leaving not much hope for the ordinary people in the poor countries.

A study conducted by Duke University shows a huge gap in the purchase of the COVID-19 vaccine by wealthy nations and developing countries. This situation threatens to leave poor nations struggling to inoculate more than a fraction of their huge population.

The growing tendency to stockpile the COVID vaccine could raise the prospect of the pandemic spreading further in the years to come. The researchers at Duke University concluded that wealthy nations have purchased as many vaccine doses as possible to increase their chances of covering their whole population multiple times.

While the middle and lower-middle-income countries do not have enough to vaccinate everyone, Europe and America have reserved enough Covid-19 vaccine doses to inoculate their entire populations, claiming the shots before they are even manufactured and squeezing supply for other countries.

Meanwhile, China has mainly allocated its vaccines for its own 1.4 billion citizens, outside of a few thousand people in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. With three Western vaccines showing progress and promising effectiveness, there is cautious optimism in the world’s poorest countries as they scramble to secure some doses.

The data shows that once COVID vaccines are introduced in the market, the majority will go to high-income nations. For the low and middle-income countries and equity-focused partnerships like COVAX, there will not be enough.

That has left many governments in Africa, Latin America and South Asia heavily dependent on a small cluster of international and nongovernmental health agencies based in Switzerland, particularly the World Health Organization, and GAVI, a Geneva-based organization that stockpiles vaccines.

In the case of India, which has made an advance purchase of the maximum amount of Covid vaccine in the world with 1.6 billion doses, it would still only cover 59 per cent of its population.

In terms of doses, India needs approximately 1.6 billion doses, followed by the European Union, which has 1.36 billion doses so far from 6 different firms. Next is the US which has bought a total of 1.1 billion doses, followed by COVAX- the vaccine alliance -- and then Canada and then the UK.

If the population is taken into account, countries like Canada have purchased enough to vaccinate its population more than five times over. The US study shows that Canada has made enough vaccine purchase to cover 601 per cent of their population, the US 443 per cent, UK 418 per cent, Australia 266 per cent and the European Union 244 per cent.

Among the developing nations, India will be able to cover only 59 per cent of its population, Mexico 84 per cent, Brazil 46 per cent and Kazakhstan 15 per cent of its population. The Philippines is at the bottom of the table with enough vaccine for only one per cent of its population.

Importantly, the government made it clear that it is not considering vaccinating the entire country as and when a vaccine for coronavirus is approved.

The government has also prepared a list of who gets the vaccine first. The priority list was topped by around 1 crore healthcare professionals, then the police and armed forces personnel, people aged above 50 and those below 50 with co-morbidities.