In a number of wealthy countries, the number of COVID-19 vaccines ordered vastly exceeds what’s needed, while many poorer countries will have to wait – possibly for years – for vaccines to become widely available. If these rich countries’ orders are fulfilled, what will happen to the excess vaccines? Will they be wasted, traded to the highest bidder, or allocated free or at cost to those poorer countries where COVID-19 is still raging Lamenting many countries’ lack of access to vaccines, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has described the world as being “on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure”. Wasting these over-ordered doses would compound this accusation many times over. readmore
