Donations

The US Has Donated 400 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Globally, as 10 Billion Doses are Administered Worldwide – Doing More but Not Enough

j.harris — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 16:13:39 +0000

The US Has Donated 400 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Globally, as 10 Billion Doses are Administered Worldwide – Doing More but Not Enough j.harris Fri, 01/28/2022 - 16:13

The US Has Donated 400 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Globally, as 10 Billion Doses are Administered Worldwide – Doing More but Not Enough

Author: Stephanie Stan

On January 26, 2022, the White House announced that the United States has shipped over 400 million COVID-19 vaccine doses. This milestone has established America as the global leader in COVID vaccine donations, shipping more donated doses than any other country. This achievement comes as the world hits its own milestone: administering 10 billion doses globally as of January 28, 2022. But as we’ve seen throughout the pandemic response, doing more is not the same as doing enough. While the US is out front in its commitments and actions, no country, and no multilateral organization, is doing enough to end the pandemic.

Global vaccine inequity, exacerbated by a lack of timely actual donations rather than pledges, places strains on the limited supply of COVID vaccines in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), especially as third doses have become recommended for some high-risk populations, despite the constrained global vaccine supply and low vaccination rates in LMICs. Global COVID cases surpassed 363 million and deaths surpassed 5.6 million, while low-income countries have achieved average full vaccination coverage of only 4%. Gaps in full vaccination coverage have created dire global need for countries to deliver on their pledged donations, especially with the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Shipping only 34% of the 1.2 billion vaccine doses that President Biden pledged in support of the goal to fully vaccinate 70% of the world by mid-2022 may seem underwhelming. However, considering that the total donated doses shipped by the U.S. surpass the pledged doses of any other country, and that the U.S. has pledged to donate more vaccine doses than any other country, this achievement sets America and its donation efforts apart from any other nation.

Pledged and shipped amounts of donated COVID-19 vaccines by the top 10 donating countries. Data collected by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center Launch and Scale Speedometer research team.

Notable factors Regarding the U.S. COVID Vaccine Donations:

The U.S. has shipped donated vaccine doses to 112 countries, with the majority of U.S. donations begin shipped to Sub-Saharan Africa.

U.S. vaccine donations have been shipped through bilateral and COVAX mechanisms. As of January 26, 2022, 59% of the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine donation doses were delivered to recipient countries through COVAX, and 41% of donated doses were delivered bilaterally.

As of January 26, 2022, the U.S. has shipped 405,322,310 donated doses to recipient nations; meaning the U.S still has about 66% (about 795 million) of its 1.2 billion pledged donations doses left to ship.

Breakdown of U.S. COVID vaccine donation shipments by month from June 2021 to January 2022, based on data from the Kaiser Family Foundation

About 76.3% of the U.S. donated doses were shipped during the second half of 2021—of which 174,600,000 were shipped between October 2021 and December 2021. Shipping a majority of donated doses around the same time, rather than shipping donations in predictable, regular shipments throughout the year, risks overwhelming recipient nations and contributing to ineffective donation strategies.

The EU and its member countries are collectively the second largest donor of COVID vaccine doses—donating 353.4 million doses of 500 million doses pledged as of November 2021, of which only about 118 million doses have been delivered to recipient nations. However, unlike the U.S., which has followed through on shipping pledged doses, the EU has not committed to shipping donated doses beyond sending those doses to COVAX, after which many donated vaccines have not been delivered to receiving countries. As of December 2021, only 40% of the EU’s donated doses through COVAX were received by recipient nations. A contributor to this small percentage of delivered doses is that donations arrived in recipient countries too close to the vaccine expiration dates—15 million EU vaccine doses donated through COVAX were turned away by recipient nations in October and November 2021 due to having a shelf life of less than 10 weeks from the time the shipped doses would have been delivered.

Recipient countries need to receive doses with ample time before they expire, so that they can store the vaccines while planning and initiating vaccine roll-out programs, especially when trying to reach and vaccinate remote, hard to reach populations. Increasingly more COVID vaccine donations will be turned away or disposed of by recipient nations unless vaccine donors and multilateral organizations get vaccines to countries in need in a more timely, predictable, and efficient manner.

The commitment differences between the U.S. and EU for shipping vaccine donations—and the large gap between the U.S. pledged donation amounts and those of any other country—emphasize a need for further accountability of countries pledging COVID-19 vaccine donations to actually ship doses, and to do so in timely increments rather than all at once right before vaccine expiration dates. By reaching the 400 million dose donation milestone, the United States has set the stage for other nations to follow in its footsteps. Now more than ever, given the spread of the Omicron variant, it is time for other nations to uphold their donation pledges to help accelerate global vaccinations.

Donations are necessary in the immediate term due to the surplus of COVID vaccines in high income countries amid the constrained global vaccine supply. However, donations are not long-term, sustainable solutions for LMIC vaccine access. Another concerning development is that Gavi/COVAX has run out of money and can no longer deliver and distribute donated doses without additional funding. Global actors need to work with local partners to enhance LMIC vaccination strategies that are aligned with health systems strengthening. Moving forward, in addition to vaccine donations, much more effort, resources, and support is needed to turn vaccines into vaccinations.

For more information on the Global Health Innovation Center’s research on Covid-19 vaccine supply and donations, see https://launchandscalefaster.org/COVID-19.

Source: Drugmakers of US testing several COVID-19 vaccines by Marco Verch under Creative Commons 2.0

COVID Vaccine Research Update

Donations

United States

vaccine donations

The World needs more deliveries, not pledges

j.harris — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 20:18:12 +0000

The World needs more deliveries, not pledges j.harris Sat, 09/18/2021 - 20:18

INSIGHTS

The world needs deliveries, not pledges

Authors: Andrea Taylor and Blen Biru

Deliveries of vaccine donations are more important than ever, given the persistent gaps in vaccine coverage globally and threat of the highly contagious delta variant. High-income countries, several of which control much of the manufacturing and existing supply of COVID-19 vaccines, have pledged hundreds of millions in dose donations to target low- and middle-income countries.

But it has been difficult to hold countries accountable for these pledges. Information on the shipment of doses has not been released with the same fanfare as the pledges themselves. Based on what we have seen so far, dose donations have been more about rhetoric than action.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced this week that the EU will increase its donation pledge by an additional 200 million doses (for mid-2022 delivery). However, the EU is woefully behind in fulfilling its existing pledge of either 200 or 250 million doses (depending on the source) for 2021 delivery, having delivered an estimated 18 million so far.

As the head of Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. John Nkengasong said earlier this month, “Pledges do not put vaccines into people’s arms.”

As world leaders prepare for the Global Covid-19 Summit to be hosted by the US alongside the UN General Assembly this coming week, we are sure to see more donation pledges fly through speeches and press releases with language about our collective responsibility and how we are all in this together. But if the Summit’s goals are to be met, we need to see shipments, not pledges.

To better track progress on donations, we are excited to release new data this week, tracking deliveries of pledged vaccine donations. New charts on our Vaccine Donations page track progress by donating country and by category (right now we include G7 and top 10 donor countries, but we plan to add more categories next week). This allows comparison of the relative size of pledges and shipments, as well as progress toward fulfilling pledges.

In the new visualizations, a bar chart shows the total number of doses shipped and pledged by country. The US stands out with by far the highest number of pledged doses, more than 600M. Even the amount of donations shipped so far by the US (110M doses) exceeds the amount pledged by any other country.

Donut charts show the progress toward meeting donation pledges. Among the top 10 donor countries, China leads by proportion of pledged donations shipped, with 75% of its pledged donations delivered. Japan follows at 50% and then there is a steep drop to Canada at 19%, the US at 17% and Italy at 12%. To be clear: as we near the fourth quarter of 2021, fulling 12% of vaccine donation pledges is enough to land a country in the top 5.

Among G7 countries, all except Japan have shipped less than 20% of their pledges. Based on the reports we were able to find, the UK brings up the rear with 3% delivered. The data show that there is a long way to go, especially for G7 countries, at risk of pledges being empty promises.

Chairwoman of the African Vaccine Delivery Alliance Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija said this week, “Ask the rich countries: Where are Africa’s vaccines? Where are the vaccines for the low- and middle-income countries of the world?” The upcoming Global COVID-19 Summit must answer these questions and demonstrate the political will necessary to move vaccine doses where they are most desperately needed. For everyone’s sake, countries must be accountable for the commitments they make to vaccine access around the world.

INTERESTING TRENDS

The US is hosting a global virtual summit – the Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better, to bring world leaders together and make commitments to end the pandemic.

The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Health Organization, and World Trade Organization released a joint statement about the dire state of vaccine access in most of the world and noting that the 2021 40% target is at serious risk, calling on countries with vaccines to urgently share.

A perspectives piece published by leading global scientists in the Lancet summarizes evidence that the vaccines remain effective against the new variants and that booster shots are not warranted at this stage of the pandemic for the general public.

A study released this week by the UK’s Office for National Statistics found that full vaccination against COVID-19 is highly effective in preventing death. Analysis of nearly 300,000 deaths between January and July 2021 found that COVID-19 accounted for 37% of deaths among unvaccinated people but less than 1% among those fully vaccinated.

The UK overturned its decision on youth vaccinations and has announced that children of ages 12-15 are now eligible for a single shot COVID vaccine. Second shots might be administered based on additional evidence.

Australia also opened vaccinations for 12- to 15-year-olds.

A study published in Science warned that new variants could emerge from Africa if the continent falls behind the necessary pandemic response.

The US government moved to mandate vaccinations for much of the US workforce. A CNN poll revealed that more than half of Americans support vaccine mandates for large gatherings (office setting, schools, sport events, concerts).

Cases are surging in most parts of the US overburdening the healthcare system, leading to deployment of federal military to states such as Idaho and rationing care in Alaska.

Israel started administering 3rd shots in August and is preparing for a possible 4th round of doses in light of increased cases due to the Delta variant.

The UK canceled their Valneva COVID-19 vaccine purchase contract despite investing in a manufacturing center in Scotland to make the vaccine. Valneva claims the UK government cited a breach of the supply agreement when canceling, which Valneva denies.

For more information on our research on Covid-19 vaccine supply, please see https://launchandscalefaster.org/COVID-19.

Weekly COVID Vaccine Research Update

Vaccines

Donations

	Confirmed Vaccine Purchases	Confirmed Donations (by recipient, includes pledges)
High income countries	6.9 B	6.5 M
Upper middle income countries	2.5 B	54 M
Lower middle income countries	2.6 B	63.9 M
Low income countries	238 M	64.9 M
COVAX	2.5 B	741 M
WORLDWIDE TOTALS	14.9 B	930 M

Taking a closer look a vaccine donations

j.harris — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 17:51:06 +0000

Taking a closer look a vaccine donations j.harris Fri, 07/02/2021 - 17:51

INSIGHTS

Taking a closer look at vaccine donations

Author: Andrea Taylor

We are excited to release new data this week, tracking vaccine donations by donor country, recipient (cut by continent and income category), and vaccine. Our data include doses that have been pledged, regardless of whether they have already been delivered. The interactive visualizations show which countries are the big donors, which vaccines are being donated, and where they are going. Using publicly available sources, we can account for nearly 900 million doses in pledged or delivered dose donations globally. While this is a staggering amount, it is a far cry from meeting the need described by the WHO and African Union.

The Sankey diagram allows you to change the variables in the dropdown menus on the right and left to cut the data different ways. No matter how you cut the data, one thing stands out: the US donations (587.5 million doses) dwarf those from all other countries. Including the US in the charts makes most other donating countries so small by comparison that they hardly show up. In the Sankey diagram, we divide the US donation total in half so that the flow of donations from other countries (all shown at 100%) can be seen and even then, it is difficult to see more than the top eight.

After the US, the next largest donor is the UK with 100 million pledged doses, followed by Japan, France, Germany, and China, all around the 30 million dose mark. The top ten list of donors (by number of doses) include two middle-income countries. China (upper-middle income) has donated vaccine to the highest number of countries (our data shows 59, but other sources have suggested 80), primarily located in Africa and Asia. However, these tend to be small donations, with most donations around 200,000 doses per country and only three countries receiving more than 1 million doses. India (lower-middle income) has taken a similar approach, donating more than 11 million doses in relatively small numbers to 47 countries, with only a few countries receiving more than 1 million doses.

High income countries have donated the vast majority of the doses, and most of that has gone to COVAX. However, aside from the US, other high-income countries have donated a total of only 254 million doses, compared with 42.5 million donated by middle income governments. To be fair, many wealthy countries have donated funding to COVAX to support the purchase of vaccines for poor countries, and that is not reflected in our donations chart.

But the global purchase data indicate that a small number of wealthy countries have the lion’s share of vaccine so donating actual doses in hand (from national supplies) right now can be more helpful than donating cash to purchase doses that won’t be stocked until later in 2022. As the African Union special envoy for vaccines noted this week, no doses have actually shipped out from European manufacturing lines to Africa and, in the wake of a third wave of infections unlike anything the continent has seen, pledges no longer matter, only doses arriving at airports.

Looking by region, Asia is meant to receive the highest number (58 million doses), followed by Africa (20 million doses). COVAX is receiving more doses by far than any region, at 700 million doses. The US purchase of 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses for donation through COVAX means that the vast majority of donated doses are Pfizer-BioNTech. But after this, the second-most donated vaccine is Oxford-AstraZeneca, followed by Sinopharm-Beijing.

In the coming weeks, we plan to build out the donations data with further layers of detail, distinguishing between doses pledged and doses delivered, doses expected to ship out in 2021 versus 2022, and doses donated from COVAX country allocations. Please let us know how this data can be most useful to you and, as always, help us fill in gaps and correct mistakes.

For more information on our research on Covid-19 vaccine supply, please see https://launchandscalefaster.org/COVID-19.

Weekly COVID Vaccine Research Update

Donations

Vaccines

High-income country confirmed dose total:	6.2 billion
Upper-middle-income country total:	2.3 billion
Lower-middle-income country total:	1.8 billion
Low-income country total:	271 million
COVAX total:	2.4 billion
Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines:	12.9 billion doses