Scarcity

WHO asks rich countries to donate 10 million vaccine doses to poorer The World Health Organization (WHO) asked rich countries on Friday to donate 10 million coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer nations. Lexi Lonas TheHill

The World Health Organization (WHO) asked rich countries on Friday to donate 10 million coronavirus vaccine doses to poorer nations.

...

It was three months after rich countries began vaccinating health workers, but Kenyans like the nurse, Stella Githaiga, had been left behind: Employed in the country’s largest public hospital, she caught the coronavirus on an outreach trip to remote communities in February, she believes, sidelining her even as Kenya struggles with a vicious third surge of infections.

Ms. Githaiga and her colleagues are victims of one of the most galling inequities in a pandemic that has exposed so many: Across the global south, health workers are being sickened and killed by a virus from which doctors and nurses in many rich countries are now largely protected.

That is just the most visible cost of a rich-poor divide that has deepened in the second year of the pandemic. Of the vaccine doses given globally, roughly three-quarters have gone to only 10 countries. At least 30 countries have not yet injected a single person.

EU defends vaccine distribution as nations complain it is uneven The European Commission on Saturday defended its policy of distributing COVID-19 vaccines evenly in the bloc after Austria and five other member states complained that doses were not allocated equally. Reuters Staff U.S.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The European Commission on Saturday defended its policy of distributing COVID-19 vaccines evenly in the bloc after Austria and five other member states complained that doses were not allocated equally.