LONDON: Poorer countries face a best-case scenario of a 6-8 month lag behind richer nations in getting access to COVID-19 vaccines to protect their populations against the pandemic disease, the philanthropist Bill Gates said on Wednesday.
In an interview with Reuters, Gates called the rollout of the first COVID-19 shots a “super hard allocation problem” that was putting pressure on global institutions, governments and drugmakers.
“Every politician is under pressure to go bid for their country to get further up in line,” Gates said.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has so far committed some $1.75 billion to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including via funds for the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative co-led by the World Health Organization, and via direct support for some vaccine makers.
COVAX, co-led by the GAVI vaccines alliance, says it aims to deliver 2.3. billion COVID-19 doses by year-end, including 1.8 billion doses to poorer countries at no cost to…