Over 60 countries are expected to miss WHO’s end-of-year target.
This is a preview of Devex CheckUp
Sign up to this newsletter for exclusive global health news and insider insights, in your inbox every Thursday.
Experts have identified a number of factors that have contributed to this situation — chronicled in our look back at vaccine equity in 2021. Sara Jerving and Jenny unpack the myriad factors: dose hoarding, export restrictions, manufacturer delays and requirements, slow in-country rollouts, dose donations with short shelf lives, and blocked proposals to expand vaccine manufacturing. Now with omicron driving high- and middle-income countries to administer booster shots, many fear worsening shortages and inequities.
• In an email to Devex, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima called the vaccination gap “inequality at its harshest.” As of Dec. 22, over 461 million booster doses have been administered in 80 countries and territories globally, more than the total number of doses administered in all of Africa. WHO said Wednesday that currently 20% of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered daily are booster shot or additional doses such as those given to the immunocompromised to strengthen their defenses.
• Projections show there should be enough doses to vaccinate 40% of countries’ populations by the end of the year. But the doses are not in the countries that need them. Duke University estimates show that G-7 and EU countries will have an excess supply of over 769 million doses in 2021 — even after vaccinating 75% of their populations and giving booster shots to an additional 20%.
• Export restrictions imposed by India, which lasted for eight months, also had a huge impact on COVAX deliveries. Dr. Phionah Atuhebwe, new vaccines introduction officer at WHO Africa, recalls how African countries — many then reliant on COVAX — had to beg for doses as the region dealt with a third wave of COVID-19 during the second quarter of 2021.
• While several countries have since pledged to donate doses, only 378 million of the 1.5 billion doses pledged to COVAX have been delivered as of Dec. 21. In an AP interview, Gavi CEO Dr. Seth Berkley says he’s seeing “donors not wanting to donate their doses as fast as they might have.” Out of fears of omicron, many nations are accelerating and broadening the coverage of their booster programs.
• Experts forecast that supply constraints will start to ease next year, with an additional 8.6 billion doses expected to be produced during the first half of 2022. But the issue is whether it will reach those that need them. A number of vaccine manufacturers still require humanitarian agencies to waive indemnity requirements for their COVID-19 vaccines, limiting the doses that can be provided to vulnerable and displaced populations not included in national vaccine rollout plans.
• And while most African countries now have adequate supplies of vaccines for rollout, “what it looks like now is not exactly what it would look like a few months down the road,” Atuhebwe says. "I know that we will always get the leftovers,” she adds.
A year in COVID-19 vaccine inequity: 'We will always get the leftovers'
Take the Devex Quiz!
Is COVAX part of the problem or the solution? This was CheckUp’s top story in our first issue last March. Read it for clues to the Devex end-of-year quiz — then take the quiz and share it with friends and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to see who among you is a true “SDGenius.”
Checkup checks in
It was a busy year for global health, and we know it can be tough to keep up sometimes — with Twitter, late WHO pressers, and the 1,001 meetings to end this pandemic and prevent the next one. That said, we’re curious to know:
• Who’s your favorite global health person to follow on Twitter?
• What should be the global development and health community’s New Year’s resolution?
• We would also love to hear: Which global health stories should we be giving more coverage in CheckUp in 2022? Write to us at checkup@devex.com and we might feature your response in a future edition.
Doses wild
Your next job?
Portfolio Forecast Analyst - COVAX
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Geneva or remote
Vince Chadwick reports on a struggle among OECD countries, as many high-income nations want to count the cost of surplus vaccines donated to low-income nations as part of their aid budgets even if the doses were originally purchased to inoculate their own citizens. The United States and the Netherlands have spoken up against the proposal, worried about the precedent it might set, but negotiations are now paused until January.
Read: US, Netherlands unconvinced on aid eligibility of surplus vax donations
Check it twice
Guess what? You’ve been reading CheckUp for 10 months now. Thank you for keeping us in your must-read list every Thursday. As the year comes to a close, we’ve rounded up the top five most-read CheckUp stories.
1. Nkengasong's bittersweet departure from Africa CDC. U.S. President Joe Biden announced in September his intent to nominate Africa CDC Director Dr. John Nkengasong to lead PEPFAR, but Nkengasong has yet to be confirmed for the position.
2. COVID-19 deaths reach 4 million globally. That milestone was reached in July, and just three months later the death toll reached 5 million. As of this week it's 5.38 million.
3. WHO 'needs more powers' says independent panel co-chair Helen Clark. Most of the recommendations by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response published in May have yet to fully materialize — such as countries redistributing 1 billion doses to lower-income countries.
4. Covishield exclusion from EU's green pass inequitable, activists warn. The EU’s digital COVID-19 certificate, or green pass, still requires a negative PCR test for those traveling across the European continent if they’ve been vaccinated with a WHO emergency use listed vaccine not yet approved by the European Medicines Agency.
5. Leading the fight against COVID-19 in Africa's most populous country. Before leaving to head the new WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence based in Berlin, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu’s leadership at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control allowed the country to successfully overcome waves of COVID-19 infections.
+ This year, we’ve also published a special report, “The State of Global Health Security,” which looked into, among other things, the future of WHO. Access all parts of the report by signing up to Devex Pro and starting your 15-day free trial.
What we’re reading
The U.S. FDA approves the world’s first long-acting, injectable, preexposure prophylaxis for HIV. [Financial Times]
The EU and WHO approved Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, which uses a different technology than the four shots already in use within the bloc. [Reuters]
Oxfam America files a complaint against Moderna for not being transparent about its COVID-19 vaccine patent dispute with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. [STAT]
This is the last Devex Checkup for 2021. We'll be taking a break over the holidays, and look forward to bringing you the next edition on Jan. 6.
About the authors
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
Amruta Byatnalamrutabyatnal
Amruta Byatnal is a Senior Editor at Devex where she edits coverage on global development, humanitarian crises and international aid. She writes Devex CheckUp, a weekly newsletter on the latest developments in global health. Previously, she worked for News Deeply in the United States, and The Hindu in India. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she studied international development. She is currently based in New Delhi.
