The United Nations has revealed that poor nations refused to take around 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in December alone, mainly due to short shelf life.
UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, uses its vaccine logistics expertise to handle delivery flights for Covax, the global scheme set up to ensure a flow of doses to poorer nations. In December, “we had almost 100 million doses that have been refused because of countries’ capacities,” UNICEF supply division director Etleva Kadili told a European Parliament Committee.
The World Health Organization slammed the deadly “moral shame” of high income countries hogging vaccine supplies then offloading near-expiry doses to jab-starved poorer nations.
“The short shelf life is really creating a bottleneck for countries to plan their vaccination campaigns,” Kadili explained.
“Until we have a better shelf life, this is going to be a pressure point for the countries, specifically when countries want to reach populations in hard-to-reach areas,” she noted.
Several nations were requesting deliveries to be put off until after March, when they might be better able to handle the pressure on the cold storage chain.
Covax is co-led by the WHO, the Gavi vaccine alliance, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Via UNICEF, it is about to deliver its billionth vaccine dose.
On December 29, the WHO announced that 92 of its 194 member states had missed its target of vaccinating 40 percent of their population by the end of 2021. “This is due to a combination of limited supply going to low-income countries for most of the year and then subsequent vaccines arriving close to expiry and without key parts like syringes,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In a speech last week, he said that while more than 9.4 billion jabs had been administered around the world, more than 85 percent of people in Africa are yet to receive a single dose.
Vaccination will be effective only if everyone is vaccinated. Until then, the pandemic will continue as new variants like Delta and Omicron develop, especially among unvaccinated populations. The provision of vaccines to these poor nations and hard-to-reach areas will be key but factors like shelf life and the availability of supplies that will allow the final delivery of jabs into arms will need to be taken into consideration.
As the WHO and Covax work on this issue from a global level, so must countries like the Philippines whose vaccination programs need to be on track if we are going to see a way out of this devastating pandemic.*
