Vaccine leadership, not chauvinism

The WHO's initiative to provide equitable access to vaccines - COVAX - is devoid of the funds needed to procure and supply the shots to poorer countries.

Exactly one year later, the world is moving towards the next decisive phase in the fight against Covid-19. Vaccines are now available and people are being inoculated — many rich countries have set targets for full immunisation by mid-year. With this done, they say, it can be back to business.

But for this to happen, we need a hard introspection by our scientific and political leadership during this critical phase of recovery. Today, on the one hand, the virus is mutating and becoming more unpredictable and there is still too much that we do not know. For instance, it is not