As more and more people in high-income countries become vaccinated against COVID-19, the inequitable allocation of approved vaccines across the globe is coming into stark relief. Wealthy nations have secured multiple times the amount of vaccine needed to protect their population, while low- and middle-income countries still need to get to the 20% of the population coverage offered by the COVAX Facility.
Rani’s (previously known as PAN) Funding and Access to COVID-19 Tools Working Group produced a policy brief urging high-income countries to coordinate with COVAX to donate excess COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries – and to engage in ‘slot swaps’ to make sure vaccines can be delivered without delay to LICs and LMICs. As vaccines arrived in wealthy nations in December and January, it became clear that countries without bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies could be left behind. In light of this reality, the working group pushed COVAX to offer countries the option to reallocate excess supplies.
Read the paper here.
