Daily Times

The coronavirus pandemic has further increased the disparity between the first world and third world countries. While many in the first world have been vaccinated, in the third world many are still awaiting the vaccine. Another case is of those countries that have the vaccine but will be forced to waste them as many people are not signing up for the jabs.

Pakistan has administered 5,843,059 vaccines up till date. However, this only makes up 0.6% people out of the total population who has been fully vaccinated.

In Pakistan, the problem is of vaccine procurement and the skepticism of people. Many refuse to get vaccinated. However, the government is making efforts to procure vaccines and everyone above the age of 30 can get vaccinated.

According to reports by CNN, many African countries such as Kenya have used up all of its covid-19 vaccine doses supplied by COVAX. While countries like South Sudan will be discarding 59,000 doses out of total 191,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine it received in donations. The reason for this is expiry. People are not getting the jab due to several misconceptions and concerns. A similar case is of Philippines where Less than 1% of the country’s 108 million people have been fully inoculated, according to data compiled by CNN. Filipinos are skeptical and although the country has received 8.2 million doses, only 4 million people have been vaccinated and many say they won’t take it at all. If people do not take the jab, Philippines will have to waste many of the doses.

Similar is case for Hong Kong, authorities may have to throw away millions of coronavirus vaccine doses because they are approaching their expiry date and enough people have not signed up for the jabs. Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world fortunate enough to secure more than enough doses to vaccinate its population of 7.5 million people. However, the increasing distrust in the government as its stamps out dissent along with misinformation taking rounds on social media, has led to entrenched vaccine hesitancy and a dismal inoculation drive.

On Tuesday a member of the government’s task force warned that Hong Konger’s “only have a three-month window before” before the city’s first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines go out of date.

“The vaccines all have expiry dates,” Thomas Tsang, a former controller of the Centre for Health Protection, told RTHK radio.

“They cannot be used after the expiry date and the community vaccination centers for BioNTech will, according to present plans, cease operating after September.”

“The whole world is scrambling for vaccines and it is just not right that we can buy a vaccine overnight and we just have it. What we have is probably all we have for the rest of the year,” he added.

Hong Kong bought 7.5 million doses each of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and China’s Sinovac. The latter has yet to be approved by the World Health Organization but was fast-tracked for use by city health regulators. It also pre-ordered 7.5 million doses of AstraZeneca jabs but scrapped that deal earlier in the year with authorities saying they planned to use the money for second-generation vaccines next year. So far just 19 percent of the population has received one dose of either vaccine while 14 percent have received two doses.

Hesitancy is common even among the city’s medical workers. Earlier this month, the city’s Hospital Authority revealed only a third of its staff had taken the opportunity to be vaccinated. There are currently millions of unused Pfizer-BioNTech shots, which must be stored at ultra-low temperatures and have a six-month shelf life.  A total of 3,263,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have been shipped to Hong Kong so far but only 1,231,600 have been administered.

Hong Kong’s vaccine hesitancy comes as many nearby countries are scrambling to secure enough doses as the coronavirus wreaks havoc. In recent weeks, some Hong Kong politicians have suggested the city could look to send unused vaccines overseas if take-up does not improve.

Public trust in the Hong Kong government has been at a historic low since Beijing and local authorities cracked down on dissent to end huge and often violent democracy protests that broke out in 2019.