An article previously done in August 2021 by Halo Staffing, titled, 'COVID-19 Vaccines are a Privilege'  which mentions the inequality surrounding vaccines. At the time the article was written, 39.6% of the world population had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Now this number stands at 61.6% but has vaccine equity improved?  

As mentioned in the previous article, Germany, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have similar populations. In fact, DRC has a bigger population than Germany, with 89 million people and Germany with 83 million. However, the rates in which people have been vaccinated is drastically different.  

In Germany 74% of people are fully vaccinated and in DRC 0.23% are fully vaccinated. There are many people that would argue that this is down to the amount of information available in each country and the number of known cases. However, this is not always the case and here is why.  

A report done by Brookings, shows that more than 9 billion vaccines have been produced, of which Africa has only received around 540 million. Despite making up 17% of the world's population. With rates like these it is unlikely that Africa will reach the target of fully vaccinating the population until 2023. Another report done by Oxfam International have found that wealthier countries received more vaccines in the run up to Christmas than African countries had all year.  

Africa is not the only continent faced with this inequality, all around the world there are many countries being left behind when it comes to vaccinating populations. This has become even more prominent due to the vaccine hoarding done by wealthier nations. Many countries in Asia and Latin America are among those that have continuously been impacted by multiple outbreaks and the lack of resources to treat these populations.  

Many wealthy nations have come together to provide more resources and vaccines for poorer countries. However, health experts are warning that these efforts are not enough to vaccinate populations and rich nations will still get access to COVID-19 vaccines earlier than others.  

Since the previous article was written not much has changed. This is no longer due to the lack of available information for the public or the number of confirmed cases, but unequal distribution. Vaccine inequity is a global issue and only can be resolved when each country works together to communicate needed efforts to vaccinate the world.