100+ economies have received coronavirus vaccines: WHO
COVAX, the global mechanism for equitable access to coronavirus vaccines, has now delivered the life-saving vaccines to more than 100 economies, said a press release the World Health Organization (WHO) sent out on Thursday.
The first doses were delivered globally only 42 days ago (to Ghana).
Over 38 million doses have now been delivered across six continents, said the WHO release, adding that the three manufacturers that supplied the vaccines are Pfizer-BioNTech, the Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca.
Of the 100+ economies that have received the doses, 61 are among the 92 lower-income economies receiving coronavirus vaccines financed via the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), the first building block of the COVAX Facility, which is a global risk-sharing mechanism for pooled procurement and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
COVAX expects that all economies that have requested coronavirus vaccines will receive them in the first half of the year, even though there was a reduction in supply availability in March and April caused by manufacturers scaling and optimizing production processes in the early phase of the rollout and an increase in vaccines demand in India.
It is expected that at least 2 billion doses will be delivered by COVAX this year. To achieve that target, the COVAX Fascility will be signing new contracts with vaccine manufacturers, said the news release.
The 102 economies that have received 38,392,540 doses combined so far are Albania, Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Andorra, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bahrain, Belize, Bermuda, Benin, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brunei Darussalam, Botswana, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Congo (DRC), Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Eswatini, Fiji, Guyana, Georgia, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Grenada, Honduras, Iraq, Indonesia, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Jordan, Jamaica, Kosovo, Kenya, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Lebanon, Liberia, Maldives, Malawi, Mali, Mongolia, Mauritius, Montenegro, Mozambique, Morocco, North Macedonia, Nauru, Nicaragua, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, the Philippines, Paraguay, Palestine, Peru, Qatar, Republic of Moldova, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Suriname, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, St. Lucia (the 100th economy to receive delivery of coronavirus vaccines), Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tuvalu, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, Tajikistan, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga, Tunisia, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Uruguay, Vietnam and Yemen.
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