Ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has had so many questions. How long will this last? Is this really our new “normal”? How will this affect our youth and generations to come? And, finally, how will we come together to put an end to this virus? For the most part, we’ve put effort into social distancing precautions, mask-wearing, and other safety procedures.
It seems like the final solution to any deadly virus such as COVID-19 is getting the world vaccinated and protected. We are at that stage, with many vaccines being developed and some already being administered globally, such as Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and even AstraZeneca (this one has not been approved for use in the U.S. yet).
So we have the vaccines developed and most of them have been safely tested, but the real question is how do we get everyone vaccinated, and divide vaccine doses evenly and fairly around the whole world? This is a question that many nations are still trying to figure out a good answer to. Even in the midst of all of the confusion and catastrophe of this crisis, a solution to this problem has arisen. This solution is COVAX.
COVAX is an international partnership led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the World Health Organization (WHO). The goal of COVAX is to distribute 2 billion doses of effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines to those who are most vulnerable and have the least resources. You may be asking, “Why doesn’t everyone just have the same resources for the COVID-19 vaccine? It is a global pandemic, so everyone should have some help.” Sadly, that is just not the case in the world we live in.
This gets into the topic of vaccine inequality around the world. Basically, this means that the wealthy countries of the world can buy a majority of the doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, while other poorer countries are left in the dust as a result of their financial situations making them unable to purchase as many doses of the vaccine. Lower-income countries also get the short end of the stick when rich countries buy more vaccines than they actually need, otherwise known as hoarding vaccines and resources. This can be represented by the fact that high-income countries represent just ⅕ of the global population, but they have bought over ½ of all available vaccine doses. They have even bought out vaccine suppliers before the vaccines were even approved and tested for use by the general public. This really made it so lower-income countries had no chance of getting an adequate amount of vaccine doses.
This graphic illustrates the previous point made about how much the wealthier countries in the world have made it difficult for poorer countries to receive an adequate number of vaccine doses.
The next issue the world faces is how to make up for the disparities in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. This is where COVAX comes in. We know their goal is to distribute 2 billion doses of effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines, but how exactly will they do it? The Gavi website states that, “COVAX will achieve this by acting as a platform that will support the research, development, and manufacturing of a wide range of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, and negotiate their pricing.” This basically means that COVAX helps to fund the making of the COVID-19 vaccines, as well as distribute them to countries in need. They do this by working with wealthier countries, such as the U.S., to allocate some of our surplus supply of doses (which is expected to be almost half a billion by July 2021) to COVAX. Then, COVAX distributes the vaccine doses to the countries and people that need them the most.
COVAX also receives funding in donations from wealthier countries to be able to purchase vaccine doses straight from the vaccine manufacturers. In fact, as of February 8, 2021, they had purchased 1.1 billion doses to mainly be distributed in lower-income countries. Although COVAX is working so hard to achieve vaccine equality around the world, they do face some challenges. Their main challenge is funding. Even though COVAX was able to purchase and distribute so many vaccine doses, it was not very kind to their wallets. COVAX ended 2020 with a funding gap of $755 million and has the potential to experience a gap of $6.4 billion this year in 2021. COVAX also faces the issue of timely distribution. Some initial targets for vaccine distribution, such as India, were missed or slowed down because of the awful situations and new waves of COVID-19 that they are experiencing in those countries. Many countries have also closed their exports in an effort to protect their citizens from outsiders carrying the virus into their countries. This makes it even more difficult for manageable, timely, and productive distribution.
This is a shipment of COVID-19 vaccine supplies being distributed in Maldives, coming all the way from Dubai.
Even though COVAX faces some problems, they are really working for a great cause. They make the point on their website that unless the world is protected and vaccinated against COVID-19, it will continue to take more and more jabs at humanity, never allowing us to return to “normal”. COVAX is working hard to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to protect themselves, no matter who they are or where they come from. Not only are we protecting ourselves by getting vaccinated, but we are also helping out our friends, family, neighbors, and even the whole world. We can do our part by supporting COVAX and remembering to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
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