Deaths from Covid-19 were surging across Africa in June when 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Chad. The delivery seemed proof that Covax, the United Nations-backed program to immunize the world, could get the most desirable vaccines to the least developed countries. Nearby in Benin, only 267 shots were being given each day, a pace so slow that 110,000 of the program’s AstraZeneca doses expired. The vaccine pileup illustrates one of the most serious unrecognized problems facing the immunization program: difficulty getting doses from airport tarmacs into people’s arms. Covax was supposed to be a global powerhouse, a multibillion-dollar alliance of international health bodies and nonprofits that would ensure that poor countries received vaccines as quickly as the rich.

Source: New York Times August 02, 2021 22:30 UTC