PEOPLE in the world’s poorest countries will have to wait two years to be vaccinated against Covid-19, researchers said yesterday as cases continue to surge across Africa.

About 11 billion doses are needed to ensure that 70 per cent of the global population are fully vaccinated. Just 3.2 million doses have been administered so far.

International Monetary Fund researchers say that, at the current rate, about six billion doses will have been given by the end of the year.

Extra doses were promised to the world’s low and middle income countries following last month’s G7 summit.

Just 1 per cent of people in those countries have received at least one dose, with 80 percent of vaccines going to high and upper middle income countries.

Efforts to vaccinate the global population are being stymied by restrictions on exports from the United States and the European Union.

Health policy researcher Andrea Taylor told the science journal Nature that it would take until 2023 to vaccinate the global population.

Only China and Russia have made their Covid licences and technology available to the world free of charge, leading to the  two nations being hailed as “models of vaccine internationalism” at last month’s four-day summit hosted by Progressive International.

The summit called for “a new international health order,” with countries from the global South committing to a series of pledges that it said were necessary to overcome “vaccine apartheid.”

On Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro threatened to demand the return of money deposited with the World Health Organisation eight weeks ago.

He said the Covid-19 Access Fund for Vaccines (Covax) had “failed Venezuela” as no doses have been delivered despite just 11.4 per cent of the country’s population being vaccinated so far.

Health services across Africa are said to be overwhelmed as the continent experiences another surge of Covid-19 cases.

According to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO), cases rose by 39 per cent between June 13 and 20 and by 25 per cent in the week ending June 27. 

At least 20 countries, including Zambia, Uganda, South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are experiencing a third wave of infections, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

But African countries received just 18.2 million of the 66 million doses of the vaccine they expected from Covax between February and May.

Just 2 per cent of Africa’s 1.3 billion people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the WHO, leading the African Union to pursue alternative sources.

“Let me put it bluntly: we are not winning in Africa this battle against the virus, so it does not really matter to me whether the vaccines are from Covax or anywhere. All we need is rapid access to vaccines,” Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said at the end of last month.

A Covax spokesperson said that it was confident of meeting its goal of supplying two billion doses by the end of the year.