New Data Illuminates Acute Vaccine Supply & Delivery Gaps for Developing Countries

The Multilateral Leaders Taskforce (MLT) on COVID-19 is working to accelerate access and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and other essential health tools to developing countries. To enhance transparency, and facilitate targeted solutions, the Taskforce is compiling data on dose requests, contracts, deliveries, and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries. The data was most recently updated yesterday and is updated every week to reflect latest developments. 

Explore the Taskforce’s data and analysis further here: https://data.covid19taskforce.com/data 

The Taskforce is working to identify countries that have contracted high volumes of vaccines and can donate surplus doses, to address acute supply shortages in developing countries. 

The Taskforce’s data and analysis show that, for example, G7 countries have collectively pre-purchased nearly 2.4 billion doses beyond the number of doses required to vaccinate their entire populations, amounting to over five doses per person. (Source: IMF-WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Supply Tracker). Some of the countries also have binding options to purchase additional doses. 

Long delays in vaccine delivery are adding to supply shortages and causing critical risks to vaccinating people in the poorest countries. Our latest data shows that less than 3% of doses that were pre-purchased by or for low-income countries have been delivered. 

Huge gaps exist between the number of vaccine doses pre-purchased by low-income countries and the number of doses needed to vaccinate 40% of the population in low-income countries. The gaps between doses delivered and the number needed to reach the targets of vaccinating 40% of the population in these countries by end-2021, and 60% by mid-2022, are enormous.

The expected vaccination rate for developing countries at end-2021 based on current delivery schedules of AVAT/COVAX/bilateral deals & donations is around 20% of the population, on average. 

The data on vaccine delivery clearly underscores that delivery schedules are not being met, and that there’s an urgent need to ensure timely delivery of doses ordered, as originally scheduled.

The World Bank has approved operations to support vaccine rollout in 54 countries amounting to $4.6 billion, with an additional $1.6 billion in the pipeline, expected to be approved by October. Our planned support for vaccine financing to year-end is $12 billion, and total support through end-2022 is $20 billion, all of which is available for immediate use by countries. Working with WHO, Gavi, and UNICEF, we have developed mechanisms for safe distribution and deployment in over 140 low- and middle-income countries. In addition, we have $7.5 billion in planned support for therapeutics, diagnostics and other COVID health tools to end-2021, of which three-fourths has been executed. 

We are partnering with the African Union and the Africa Centers for Disease Control to support the AVAT in order to help countries purchase and deploy single-dose COVID-19 vaccines for up to 400 million people across Africa. We are also working with COVAX to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine supply for developing countries through a new financing mechanism that builds on Gavi’s newly designed Advance Market Commitment cost-sharing arrangement.