By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – The COVAX global vaccination-sharing program has distributed 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine vaccine doses. One of its managers said this on Saturday.

Due to a shortage of vaccines, the supply of vaccines for poorer countries has been extremely limited. However, wealthier states have secured most of those doses starting in December 2020.

The shipments to COVAX have increased exponentially in the quarter to the point that COVAX has shipped 1,000,000 doses to 144 different countries.

COVAX was launched in 2020 with the goal of delivering 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, but was slowed by wealthier states’ initial hoarding of limited shots, export restrictions and frequent changes https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/global-vaccines-project-revamp-rules-after-britain-got-more-than-botswana-2021-09-27 within its organisation.

In February 2021, the program started delivering vaccines. One-third of the vaccine doses have been given by wealthy countries, even though COVAX initially planned to provide jabs directly from COVAX with an initial budget of more than $10 billion.

This has caused delays as donors frequently requested that doses be sent to specific countries.

Despite the increase in vaccinations, inequity in vaccine coverage remains high. According to the latest WHO data, 67% of people in wealther countries have had their vaccines completed. This compares with only 5% for those in less developed nations. 40 percent of the global population have not received their first dose.

Gavi is a vaccination alliance that co-manages COVAX. It seeks more funding to help it reach its WHO goal of immunizing 70% of people in the poorer countries by July.