As G7 leaders meet for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, new analysis released by global anti-poverty organisation The ONE Campaign shows that the world’s richest countries are on course to accumulate more than 1-billion more doses than they would need to fully vaccinate all their own citizens.
The analysis looks at the number of doses of the five leading COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax) purchased to date, and finds that Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, and US and the EU have already secured a total of over 3-billion doses of approved Covid vaccines, over 1-billion more than the 2,06-billion needed to give their entire populations two doses.
To date, the rest of the world has only been able to secure 2,5-billion doses of the most promising vaccines.
Jenny Ottenhoff, senior director for policy at The ONE Campaign, comments: “This huge excess is the embodiment of vaccine nationalism. Rich countries understandably hedged their bets on vaccines early in the pandemic but with these bets paying off in spades, a massive course correction is needed if we are going to protect billions of people around the world.
“G7 leaders will not be doing any favours for their own citizens or the rest of the world if they stockpile vaccines. If the virus can thrive in any part of the world, the risk of new variants increases.
“This is a race we cannot afford to lose. Otherwise it is only a matter of time before strains emerge that undermine the vaccines and tools that have been developed to fight Covid-19. None of us are out of the woods until we have beaten this virus everywhere,” she adds.
“The good news is that when G7 leaders meet today, they have the chance to seize this opportunity. If they can agree a fast, fair, and effective way to share excess doses with other countries as soon as they come off the production line, they could really supercharge the global fight against this virus. The quicker we can protect the whole world, the sooner this pandemic ends for all of us and we can begin the task of rebuilding and getting our lives back on track.”