WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) – Wealthy countries have already locked up more than a billion doses of coronavirus vaccines, raising worries that the rest of the world will be at the back of the queue in the global effort to defeat the pathogen. Moves by the United States and Britain to secure supplies from Sanofi and partner GlaxoSmithKline, and another pact between Japan and Pfizer, are the latest in a string of agreements. The European Union has also been aggressive in obtaining shots, well before anyone knows whether they will work. Although international groups and a number of nations are promising to make vaccines affordable and accessible to all, doses will likely struggle to keep up with demand in a world of roughly 7.8 billion people. The possibility that wealthier countries will monopolise supply, a scenario that played out in the 2009 swine flu pandemic, has fuelled concern among poor nations and health advocates. The US, Britain, EU and Japan have so far secured about 1.3 billion doses of potential Covid-19 immunisations, according to London-based analytics firm Airfinity. Options to snap up additional supplies or pending deals would add more than 1.5 billion doses to that total, its figures show. “Even if you have an optimistic assessment of the scientific progress, there’s still not enough vaccines for the world,” according to Mr Rasmus Bech Hansen, Airfinity’s chief executive officer.
