Push To Provide Covid-19 Vaccines To Poor Hits Snag

Schoolchildren have their hands disinfected on the first day of the new school year in Skopje, Macedonia, on Thursday. Agence France-Presse

LONDON

UAE announces 1,158 new cases, 1,179 recoveries and two deaths; 17 businesses fined for flouting virus protocol; ‘Micro smart lockdown’ in Karachi; India sees over 86,000 cases, says September was worst; Madrid put under virus curbs.

An ambitious humanitarian project to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest people is facing potential shortages of money, cargo planes, refrigeration, and vaccines themselves – and is running into skepticism even from some of those it’s intended to help most.

In one of the biggest obstacles, rich countries have locked up most of the world’s potential vaccine supply through 2021, and the US and others have refused to join the project, called Coax.

“The supply of vaccines is not going to be there in the near term, and the money also isn’t there,” warned Rohit Malpani, a public health consultant who previously worked for Doctors Without Borders.

Covax was conceived as a way of giving countries access to coronavirus vaccines regardless of their wealth.