Coronavirus: richest countries ‘hoarding’ Covid vaccines from world’s poorest, watchdog says

An NHS nurse vaccinates a patient — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Many of the world’s poorest nations will be forced to go without Covid-19 vaccines as richer countries are hoarding enough doses to immunise their populations three times over, an international vaccine watchdog has claimed.

The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition campaigning for universal access to the jabs, said that “in nearly 70 of the poorest nations, only one in ten people can hope to get a vaccine by the end of next year”, The Times reports. Five of the 67 nations - Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Ukraine - have reported nearly 1.5 million cases between them.

Coronavirus: how countries get away with hoarding life-saving drugs

Shortages are being caused by the world’s developed nations, which represent just 14% of the population, buying up “more than half of the most promising vaccines”, the paper adds.

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The campaign, which includes Oxfam and Amnesty International, found that “all doses of the Moderna vaccine have been bought by rich countries, as have 96% of Pfizer’s doses”, Sky News says. Canada was singled out as having bought enough vaccines to give the jab to every citizen five times.

Promising results from the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which will be provided to low- and middle-income countries at not-for-profit prices “in perpetuity”, had been hoped to be a potential fix to vaccine hoarding.

But the campaign said that “even a promise from those behind the vaccine to allocate 64% of doses to people in developing nations may not be enough”, Sky News adds.

“The hoarding of vaccines actively undermines global efforts to ensure that everyone, everywhere can be protected from Covid-19,” said Steve Cockburn, head of economic and social justice at Amnesty International.

“By buying up the vast majority of the world’s vaccine supply, rich countries are in breach of their human rights obligations.”

Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs.

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a masterâ€™s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.