The Lancet: Rich countries snapped up 70% of vaccines, distributed unfairly or prolonged outbreaks

High-income countries have snapped up about 70 percent of the world's new crown vaccines, and poorer countries may not be able to get enough doses because of a lack of funds, which could lead to an extended global outbreak crisis, according to a paper published on the website of the International Medical Journal, The Lancet, on February 12.
Olivier Wouters, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was the first author to publish a paper in The Lancet entitled The Challenge of Global Access to the New Crown Vaccine: Production, Affordability, Distribution and Deployment. In less than a year, the paper notes, the world has produced a variety of new crown vaccines, with prices varying widely from one dose to another, with the cheapest costing about $5 per dose and the most expensive more than $60. Rich countries have snapped up large quantities of vaccines, estimated to account for 70 per cent of the current total, which could lead to poor and middle-income countries struggling with vaccine shortages in the coming years.
The paper stresses that one of the challenges of vaccination is to ensure adequate global access to adequate doses, but there is a current oversupply, with large quantities of vaccines pre-ordered in rich countries and billions of people may not be able to obtain new crown vaccines, which could prolong the outbreak crisis and increase the risk of virus mutations, thereby undermining the effectiveness of existing vaccines.
", the world needs more doses of the new crown vaccine than any other vaccine in history. "As more new crown vaccines are approved for market, experts recommend that vaccine distribution be tailored to local needs, such as those that can be given in single doses, and should be distributed to poor countries that do not have perfect storage conditions.
told the BBC that the distribution of the new crown vaccine must be fairer, or it could take years to contain the global outbreak.