COVAX VACCINE-SHARING PROGRAM LACKS MILLIONS OF DOSES

The COVAX vaccination equity program is 190 million doses short of the numbers needed by the end of June for vaccinations to combat COVID-19 in poorer countries, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

The program, which was set up to provide rapid access to vaccines for all countries, on Thursday called on wealthier countries to donate more doses.

"Even though COVAX will have larger volumes available later in the year through the deals it has already secured with several manufacturers if we do not address the current, urgent shortfall the consequences could be catastrophic," the program warned.

While the US and European countries have pledged a combined 180 million doses, this is not enough, COVAX said. Wealthy countries should be able to provide a combined one billion doses by the end of the year, while still having sufficient quantities to vaccinate their own populations, according to an analysis by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation cited by COVAX.

COVAX also needs 2 billion dollars to buy further vaccines. It needs the sum by early June to place more orders.

The program planned to deliver 1.8 billion vaccine doses to poorer countries by the end of the year, and a large proportion of these have been ordered from Indian manufacturers.

However, the Indian government has largely halted shipments abroad due to soaring infection rates, leaving COVAX only able to provide some 70 million doses to 126 countries by the end of May. The WHO has warned that where the virus runs unchecked, new variants may emerge that could in the worst case prove resistant to the vaccines currently available.

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