Successfully developing vaccines within a year of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak was an unprecedented achievement, but their rollout to low- and middle-income countries continues to drag.
As of March, of the more than 10bn Covid-19 vaccination doses administered worldwide, only 1 per cent were in low-income countries, according to the United Nations.
Some countries have blamed global intellectual property rules for this disparity. To address this problem, in 2020, India and South Africa proposed to waive, for at least three years, IP rules on Covid vaccines. That would allow poorer countries to develop their own vaccines at a lower cost, without being sued by drugs companies.