“For much of the pandemic, the main obstacle to vaccinating the world against the coronavirus was a lack of supply, as wealthy nations bought up vaccine doses and logistical bottlenecks hampered access for the poorest countries,” Adam Taylor writes in The Washington Post. “But increasingly, global vaccination efforts — spearheaded by Covax, a vaccine-sharing initiative backed in part by the World Health Organization — face a problem just as complex: a lack of demand. Backers of Covax say they have seen a sharp decline in dose orders, including in countries with relatively low vaccination rates. This decline, fueled in part by pandemic fatigue, could prove the biggest obstacle to vaccination initiatives worldwide in the year ahead. In South Africa, for instance, where President Cyril Ramaphosa less than two years ago called out wealthy nations for buying ‘up to four times what their population needs,’ daily vaccination numbers have plummeted since the summer, and millions of doses were thrown away unused in the latter half of 2022. … Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, told The Washington Post that because of lower demand, Covax expects to deliver about 400 million doses around the world in 2023 — less than half of the billion or so annual deliveries it made, mainly to lower-income countries, in 2021 and 2022.” Adam Taylor, “Amid low demand, global coronavirus vaccination set to slow in 2023,” The Washington Post.
Jeanne Pinder is the founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. She worked at The New York Times for almost 25 years as a reporter, editor and human resources executive, then volunteered for a buyout and founded... More by Jeanne Pinder
