Tuesday, October 12, 2021

America's Vaccine Hoarding

 Doctors Without Borders—known internationally as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)—said the United States is hoarding nearly 500 million excess coronavirus vaccine doses—the most of any country.

"It's reckless and dangerous for the U.S. and other high-income countries to be sitting on excessive stocks of Covid-19 vaccines while others... are desperate to provide their most vulnerable people with even their first dose," Dr. Carrie Teicher, director of programs at Doctors Without Borders USA, said.

Public Citizen president Robert Weissman noted in a statement, "All African countries combined have had roughly 150 million doses administered."

"Africa has a population over 1.34 billion. The U.S. population is 330 million," Weissman said. "Put simply: Africa has four times the population of the U.S. but has administered about one-third the number of Covid vaccine doses... This unconscionable vaccine apartheid is not just leaving billions of people in African and other developing countries vulnerable to preventable disease, suffering, and death, it is dramatically increasing global poverty rates—as well as the death, disease, and hunger that accompanies severe poverty."

'Reckless': Doctors Without Borders Slams US for Hoarding 500 Million Vaccine Doses (commondreams.org)

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