Vaccinate nearly 1 billion people, about 12% of the world population, within the next 100 days. Here is the impossible mission evoked by the World Health Organization which in recent days has reiterated the need to vaccinate 70% of the population with at least two doses by July in order to finally try to get out of the pandemic by reducing the “reservoirs” of new ones as much as possible dangerous variants of the virus before the arrival of next autumn, when Covid could raise its head. If in Italy we are already at the fourth dose for the elderly and the frail, in many areas of the world, especially in developing countries, the vaccine is still almost a complete unknown.
Only 15% in Africa
In fact, today we are still 58% of vaccinated people with at least two doses worldwide (12% is missing) with striking differences: if Europe has reached 70.2% of totally immunized inhabitants (with Italy almost 85%); the US is at 65.6%, while Africa is still very far from the WHO target since the number of vaccinated people has reached a skimpy 15%. What is worrying is the pace of vaccinations which has now dramatically slowed down around the world due to vaccination hesitation: a mix of skepticism and fatigue after two years of pandemic. Except that in Africa, in addition to hesitation, there is also an enormous infrastructural problem that prevents the administration of the doses that would not be lacking at the moment.
According to the Center for Disease Prevention and Control of Africa, as of April 5, the African continent received 749.7 million doses of the Covid vaccine and administered approximately 502 million (67% of the supply). With the rate of administration followed so far, Africa will be able to reach 40% of vaccination coverage only in one year, that is, in May 2023.
Supplies far beyond demand
“The problem is no longer the shortage of vaccines, but vaccination”, explained Thomas Cueni, the director of the international association of the pharmaceutical industry (Ifpma) in a web seminar with journalists from all over the world in which the point was also made on the new vaccines and treatments against Covid. “Vaccine supplies outperform demand, we produced 11 billion doses in 2021, but demand slows and order cancellations began in the first quarter of the year,” Cueni said. “We have to face the vaccine hesitation – he specified – and these are not problems that are solved with the suspension of patents, on the contrary I am surprised that the issue is still debated given the cancellation of orders and production plants that are closed”.
One of the obstacles that hinder vaccination campaigns the most in the poorest countries was the president and CEO of Pfizer Alberto Bourla: «We must work together to improve infrastructures so that emerging countries can also absorb the vaccination offer. Through the US government we have made 1 billion doses of the vaccine available to the poorest countries for free, 800 million of these cannot be absorbed by vaccination campaigns in these countries, partly due to a high level of vaccination hesitation, but also for reasons infrastructural “. “If in the US or the EU it takes 15 minutes to get to a vaccination center – warns Bourla -, in some of these countries you have to walk for 8 hours”.