Because vaccine inequities have appeared along racial lines inside the United States, it’s unfortunately unsurprising that global vaccine inequities also exist, especially in the context of the pandemic. Rather than challenges to vaccine accessibility based on race (though of course such disparities exist outside of the United States), global vaccine inequities can be seen on the international stage through the allocation of vaccinations amongst countries with differing resources.
Specifically, global data has indicated that countries with high income level average vaccination rates of 75-80%, whereas the same statistic for lower-income countries was often less than 10%.
How did this begin?
Well, the easiest way to trace the start of these disparities is to look to their origin. Vaccinations (in the case of the U.S.) were largely developed with public funding, but now the intellectual property belongs to pharmaceutical companies that can control the pricing of vaccination--often out of reach of populations in the Global South.
In addition being unable to afford vaccination, some lower-income countries and rural areas simply do not have the technical means to store the vaccine and administer it properly. Both of these factors, among many other nuances, contribute to the growing issues.
Furthermore, reports showed that high-income countries--especially Europe and North America--often hoarded more vaccinations than necessary during the initial periods of the pandemic, resulting in the wasting of many vaccines.
Why does this matter?
Well first of all, from a purely scientific perspective, the lack of availability of vaccination globally makes it more difficult for us to achieve worldwide herd immunity--the point at which a high proportion of the population is resistant to the disease. The more people across the globe that are vaccinated, the less likely it is for highly infectious or fatal variants to emerge in the future.
However, beyond that clinical reasoning, the COVID-19 vaccine disparity is another prognostic marker for inequalities between high and low-income countries that exist not only at the level of health care, but also other critical resources and
infrastructure. The vaccine inequity is only a symptom of a broader economic disparity worsened by diseases like the pandemic.
So, how did (and can) we address these systemic issues?
One of the main solutions humanity has taken to bridge the vaccine gaps was COVAX (the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility), an initiative that delivered around 2 billion vaccines to approximately 150 countries, but largely overlooked developing areas. Other organizations are now attempting to make up ground where COVAX fell short: for instance, the World Health Organization hopes to bring mRNA vaccine technologies to South African countries.
In an ideal future, lower-income countries will not need to rely upon global donors but can produce and distribute vaccines themselves. Many countries are signaling support for TRIPS--Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights--to enable the manufacturing of vaccines around the globe.
All in all, it is essential to understand the shortcomings of COVID-19 vaccine distribution globally in order to build a more inclusive, accessible infrastructure for global health care. With an estimated five million deaths due to COVID-19, and countless more in the past due to other epidemics such as AIDS, the importance of equitable vaccination is more key than ever.
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