Jan 28, 2022
At first glance, it may seem as if the world will soon have more than enough COVID-19 vaccines but Prashant Yadav says over 70 percent of the vaccines produced in 2021 were bought by high- and upper-middle-income countries. Less than one percent, by contrast, have gone to low-income ones. And, he says, it’s not just a problem of aggregate distribution.
“The world may appear to have lots of vaccines, but only 27 percent of them are messenger RNA (mRNA) shots, which train the body to make the protein that allows COVID-19 to infect cells and then the antibodies that fight it off. And so far, these are the vaccines that appear able to prevent people from becoming sick with the new, very contagious Omicron variant. These more effective and adaptable vaccines are even more concentrated in rich states than are shots overall.”
Yadav says the solution is for wealthy countries, multilateral development banks, and global health agencies to expand mRNA manufacturing in regions and countries that have little to no capacity. Prashant Yadav is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and affiliate professor of technology and operations management at INSEAD