As the United States pledges $4 billion to support COVAX and the equitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines worldwide, a long list of governments still have not been able to secure enough doses to start inoculating their populations. New Zealand, one of the most successful countries at keeping Covid-19 at bay, started vaccinations on Saturday while Australia is getting its rollout underway today.
Japan has started vaccinating healthcare workers but shortages of the Pfizer BioNTech shot mean it will only start providing jabs to the elderly in April. Elsewhere, Mongolia is getting its campaign underway tomorrow with Covishield, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being produced by the Serum Institute in India, the initial shot of choice.
As this map based on Our World in Data figures shows, many African countries struggled to compete with wealthier governments when it came to securing vaccines. So far, the only African countries conducting vaccinations are Morocco (AstraZeneca and Sinopharm), Egypt (Sinopharm), Algeria (Sputnik V), South Africa (Johnson & Johnson), the Seychelles (Sinopharm and AstraZeneca), Rwanda (Pfizer and Moderna), Mauritius (AstraZeneca) and Zimbabwe (Sinopharm).
