Vaccine inequality will have an impact that the pandemic will not end. The emergence of the Corona Omicron variant in South Africa, for example, is widely associated with the phenomenon of vaccine inequality in developing countries.
In recent weeks, the spread of COVID-19 has increased rapidly due to the emergence of Omicron. First detected by South African scientists in November 2021, this variant has surged globally faster than its previous form.
Scientists first recognized Omicron thanks to its distinctive combination of more than 50 mutations. Some of them are carried by previous variants such as Alpha and Beta, and previous experiments have shown that these variants can allow the Corona virus to spread rapidly.
Omicron was declared a 'variant of concern' by the WHO World Health Organization on 26 November 2021. Since then, Omicron has been identified in more than 80 countries. Those who have been fully vaccinated are still largely protected from severe disease.
How vaccine inequality gives rise to new variants
Vaccine inequality is a situation in which developed countries have abundant vaccine stocks and have successfully vaccinated a large part of their population. Meanwhile, developing countries still find it difficult to have sufficient stock of vaccines for priority groups.
Quoted from Our World in Data, the percentage of people being vaccinated in Africa is still very low when compared to the rate of vaccination in the world, especially since several developed countries have started implementing booster vaccines.
South Africa and Botswana have only succeeded in vaccinating 26.6% and 43% of the population, respectively. If calculated as a whole, the African continent has only managed to vaccinate 9.5% of its population.
"The priority in every country and globally must be protecting the most vulnerable, not the most protected," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, quoted from The Organization for World Peace.
Please note, the vaccine protects vulnerable groups from severe symptoms. The more people who haven't been vaccinated, the more people are at risk of developing severe symptoms. Virus mutations, often occur in patients with severe symptoms. This means that the more people who have not been vaccinated, the higher the chance of mutations for the Corona virus.
Vaccine distribution constraints
Rich countries (US, EU, Australia, Switzerland, UK, Canada) are committed to donating vaccines. However, this is constrained by distribution problems.
Dr William Moss, epidemiologist and international health specialist at Johns Hopkins University, needed four "Ds" for a vaccine campaign to run effectively and vaccine distribution to be evenly distributed, namely: dose, delivery, demand, and data.
"To deliver the Corona vaccine to the people who need it is a big challenge. It takes a cold chain distribution system, a transportation system and health workers to be able to deliver it," he said.
Even if there are enough health workers injecting vaccines, concerns about a shortage of vaccines persist. Meanwhile, in a country like the US, many can be fully vaccinated and even receive a booster shot.
Sadly, the US threw away at least 15 million doses of vaccines expired by September 2021. Canada also threw away 1 million doses of vaccines expired by November 2021.
Many experts have called for "line-swapping" which refers to rich countries helping enable poor countries to get ahead of the vaccine distribution list to remedy disparities.
NBC News in its report as reported on Friday (1/21/2022) wrote that no single country can solve this pandemic alone. If rich countries like the US and UK are not willing to donate more vaccines, this pandemic will never end.
If there are still many vulnerable groups who have not been vaccinated, more variants of the new Corona will spread, not only Omicron. The solution is to distribute more vaccines, increase vaccine production, and share intellectual property on how vaccines can be made.