The world has been fighting with the COVID-19 for almost a year. As many as 1.77 million people have lost their lives to the deadly virus, and millions are still battling against it. With the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the entire world has started to see the light of hope on the other side of the tunnel. As soon as the success of vaccines was announced, several countries pre-ordered a huge amount of doses to be delivered as soon as possible. The bulk purchases of vaccine doses have also contributed to the global share, which is revealed in the infographic.
The news of the COVID-19 vaccine rolled out in November, which excited the world, and since then, around 7.25 billion vaccine doses have been pre-ordered. Every country has bought the number of doses depending on the severity of Coronavirus cases in their nation. For example, the European Union has bought the largest number of doses, i.e., nearly 1.6 billion, which accounts for 21.86% global share. Followed by India on the second, where a number of COVID-19 cases are not showing any sign of slowing down, the country has miserably been hit by the virus and in desperate need of the vaccine urgently. India has pre-purchased 1.5 billion doses that make a global share of 20.7%. Since India is a low-income state, it made manufacturing agreements with the developers of vaccines to be able to get the desired number of doses for the nation.
High-income companies don't face any trouble in buying multiple batches of billion doses because of their stable economy; however, low-income countries will have to struggle for it. The lower-wage states are advised to leverage other ways of acquiring the vaccines, for example, provide volunteered services in exchange for the vaccines, as done in Peru.
The total percentage of doses bought by the high-income countries is almost 54% that equates to about 4 billion doses. In contrast, low-income countries have bought only 23% of them. Let's talk about the per person doses in the countries. Canada is on the top since the country has bought over 350 million doses for a total population of around 38 million people, which accounts for nine vaccine doses for a single person.
With the development of successful vaccines against the COVID-19, the future seems to get back to normal in the coming year. However, some countries are trying to get there faster than any other country, whereas several countries still need to enter the race.
Infographic by: Visualcapitalist.com
