Why the world won't go back to 'some sense of normal' until all countries are vaccinated against COVID-19 | CBC News

As countries such as Canada and the United States continue vaccinating millions of citizens, global health experts warn the pandemic could keep raging if lower-income nations don't get their share of much-needed doses.

President Joe Biden, announced on Thursday the country will rejoin the World Health Organization (WHO) — and with it, the COVAX Facility, a global initiative to ensure COVID-19 vaccines reach those in greatest need.

"I would characterize the approach to global vaccine distribution as a massive failure," said Jenna Patterson, the South Africa-based director of health economics at the Health Finance Institute, a U.S.

While Canada is among the nations signed on with COVAX, it's also one of the wealthy countries buying up massive shipments from a slate of vaccine producers — with millions of doses already administered between them.

Meanwhile, other countries have no doses in the pipeline, with some lower-income nations waiting for international aid that could take months.

Ranu Dhillon, a global health physician who teaches at Harvard Medical School. .

On one hand, countries without COVID-19 vaccination programs could experience more infections and deaths for far longer; on the other, the possibility of vaccine-resistant variants emerging from ongoing hot zones could backfire on already-vaccinated countries as well. .

The coronavirus doesn't respect international borders, said Dhillon, evidenced by the ongoing global spread of variants first found in countries such as Brazil and the U.K., meaning there's no way to end the pandemic by focusing solely on national response.

If transmission continues largely unchecked in lower-income countries, there's a possibility that variants emerge that don't respond to current vaccines being rolled out in wealthy nations, he said.

"It is deeply unjust that the most vulnerable Africans are forced to wait for vaccines while lower-risk groups in rich countries are made safe," said Dr.

Guinea is currently the only low-income country in Africa to provide its residents with COVID-19 vaccines, and to date, according to the WHO, those have only been administered to 25 people.

Patterson, who's based in South Africa and was speaking for the Health Finance Institute, said it's in the world's best interest to ensure all countries are vaccinated against this virus, on both economic and moral fronts — since the death toll in unvaccinated regions could continue skyrocketing while infection rates drop elsewhere. .

"And COVID has displayed this better than any other disease, how the health of one nation affects another," she said.

South Africa is the hardest-hit country in Africa with more than 1.3 million cases to date.

COVAX has committed to vaccinating at least 20 per cent of the population in Africa by the end of 2021 by providing a maximum of 600 million doses, with a first round of 30 million doses expected to start arriving in countries by March.

Alison Thompson, an associate professor at the University of Toronto and researcher on ethics and public health, said countries like Canada and the U.S.

Wealthier nations accessed those first, he explained, while poorer countries were left waiting, with many of those infected in the developing world still starting therapy late

"Instead of waiting to look back in retrospect and question why we didn't do more — I think we're in that moment now," Dhillon said