Global Vaccine Equality Is The Only Way To Control Covid

World health leaders are making an urgent call for $16bn (£11.8bn), telling us that if 2022 is to become the year when we finally bring Covid-19 fully under control, they need to spend on testing, treatments, vaccines and PPE.

- Gordon Brown

They say that without this funding, we have no chance of meeting the global Covid targets of vaccinating 70 per cent of the world’s population.

Since the turn of the year, Covid cases have reached their highest level yet – more than 10 million reported in the first 40 days of 2022 – and despite the successful manufacture of 12 billion vaccines, enough to fully immunise every adult in the world, the gap between the vaccinated rich and the unvaccinated poor is not narrowing but still continues to grow.

Only 11 per cent of the whole population in Africa has received two shots, and in low-income countries, the number is still just 5 per cent. While nearly 70 per cent of vaccines have been administered in high – and upper-middle-income countries, only 1 per cent have been allocated for low-income countries. The gap in testing is even worse. To date, 0.4 per cent of tests have been administered in low-income countries, while nearly 80 per cent of all tests have been administered in richer countries.