Vax delivery doubled to 1 2021; SII produced 13% of Shots

Unicef’s 2021 Data Highlights Global Vaccine In

- Rupali.Mukhjerjee

Mumbai:A total of 11 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses were produced and delivered to countries globally in 2021, which is twice the volume of the total global vaccine market in the pre-Covid year, 2019, for routine immunization. Of the Covid-19 jabs, the two Chinese vaccines — Sinovac and Sinopharm cornered the largest volume shares 21% and 19% (2.3 bn and 2.1 bn doses) respectively, while the share of India’s Serum Institute of India (SII) stood at 13% or 1.5 billion doses, according to UNICEF’s year in review.

In India alone, the use of SII-manufactured Covishield is around 1.4 billion doses till now.

As against this, in the preCovid era, the vaccine market for poliovirus vaccine — the largest global vaccine market (by volume) in 2019 — stood at 1.5 billion doses, while for seasonal influenza stood at 0.5 billion doses. The 5.5 billion vaccines used for routine immunization included 85 different vaccines for different illnesses.

Significantly, the data highlights the global vaccine inequity marked by the highly uneven global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. High-income countries received close to 200 doses per 100 inhabitants compared to less than 20 doses per 100 inhabitants in low-income countries.

Even though the World Health Organisation called for a moratorium on Covid-19 booster jabs until the end of 2021, their administration in rich nations increased drastically at the end of the year to fight the Omicron variant.

Looking ahead, the focus for new vaccine supply agreements will be on paediatric, boosters and/or new variant-specific vaccines, it adds.