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WORLD-HEALTH-VIRUS-VACCINE
Vaccines: 51 million given jabs worldwide
PARIS, Jan 20, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – More than 51 million doses of Covid-19
vaccines have been given around the world, according to an AFP count on
Wednesday.
– Quarter of Israelis –
Israel leads the vaccination race by far in terms of the percentage of
population.
More than a quarter of its citizens have had shots, with 2.43 million
vaccines given.
More than one in 20 have already received the second dose.
The country secured a huge stock of Pfizer jabs partly by pledging to share
impact data quickly with the company.
One privacy specialist described the rollout as “the biggest experiment on
humans in the 21st century”.
Globally, 51,285,801 doses have been given in at least 61 countries or
territories.
– Unequal access – The rich countries of Europe, North America, the Gulf
and China are hogging most of the vaccines so far.
Just 11 of the 61 nations who have started vaccinating account for 90
percent of the doses given.
Major Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have
launched campaigns but at a slower pace than other regions.
In Africa only the Seychelles has begun a campaign, while Guinea is running
a pilot programme involving a few dozen people.
The World Health Organization hopes to deliver the first vaccines through
the Covax scheme to share out shots more fairly by the end of the month or
early February.
– And the winners are… –
The US leads in terms of sheer volume of shots, with 15.7 million doses
given to 4.1 percent its population. China has given 15 million doses.
The UK comes in third — and first in Europe — with 4.7 million doses
covering 6.3 percent of the population.
Italy and Germany have each administered 1.2 million doses to 1.4 percent
of Germans and 2 percent of Italians. France has given vaccines to 585,662
people or 0.9 per cent of the population.
More than than six million doses have been given across the EU, with
Denmark leading the way with 3 percent of its people getting a first jab,
ahead of Malta (2.9 percent), and Slovenia (2.1 percent).
– Seven vaccines –
There are currently seven vaccines circulating around the world, all
designed to be given in two doses.
The vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech (US-German) and Moderna (US) are
dominant in North America, Europe, Israel and the Gulf.
Britain’s AstraZeneca-Oxford is used in much of the UK and India, with the
latter also using a vaccine produced by its pharmaceutical firm Bharat
Biotech.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has been rolled out in Russia, Argentina,
Belarus and Serbia.
China’s Sinopharm jabs are being administered in China, the United Arab
Emirates, Bahrain, the Seychelles and Jordan, while Indonesia and Turkey are
using China’s Sinovac vaccine.
China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines and Russia’s Sputnik V jab have yet
to be fully approved by either Beijing or Moscow’s health authorities.
BSS/AFP/SSS/2007 hrs