How Covax fell short

Islam News – The multibillion-dollar alliance of international health systems and nonprofits was supposed to ensure that poor countries received vaccines as quickly as rich ones. Instead, Covax struggled in its attempts to secure doses, falling half a billion short of its target, and is now failing to actually deliver the vaccine.

Chad received 100,000 doses in June, but five weeks later some 94,000 doses remain unused. Nearby in Benin, only 267 shots were being given each day — a pace so slow that 110,000 of the program’s AstraZeneca doses expired.

The shortfalls are leaving poor countries dangerously unprotected as the Delta variant of the coronavirus runs rampant. And without billions more vaccines, experts warn, new variants could keep emerging across the globe.

Quotable: “Covax hasn’t failed, but it is failing,” said Dr. Ayoade Alakija, a co-chair of the African Union’s vaccine delivery program. “We really have no other options. For the sake of humanity, Covax must work.”

Related: The E.U. foreign policy chief criticized the bloc for falling short of vaccine donations to Africa and Latin America, creating a vacuum that China is filling.

Source: The New York Times