It seems like a long time ago now – and a whirlwind of pandemics and non-pandemic events have occurred since – but just over a year ago a British grandmother was the first no one in the world to receive a vaccine against COVID-19.

It was a historic moment. And the lucky recipient was Margaret Keenan, 90, of Coventry.

The news signaled that the UK was on track to deliver vaccines and protect against the virus that had swept the world 10 months earlier. And thanks to an incredibly effective vaccine rollout provided by the National Health Service – one of the only areas of the UK’s pandemic response that was praised in an otherwise damning report released in October – the vast majority of eligible Britons, 81%, are doubly vaccinated one year later. A rollout for the booster jab, or third vaccination shot, is also happening quickly.

But throughout the year, public health experts and activists have repeatedly warned that as wealthy countries like the UK focus on their own populations, the COVID-19 virus will continue to spread around the world, turning into new variants against which available vaccines may be less effective.

Unlike around 90% of Britons who have been vaccinated at least once, only 11% of the total population of Africa received a vaccine, according to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Only 7% of people in low-income countries in the world have received at least one dose of life-saving vaccine.

The latest issues with the highly contagious news Omicron variantt spread across the world are one example. Vaccine inequality means the pandemic is spreading everywhere – as unprotected areas always have high infection rates, giving the virus plenty of chances to change and become the next variant.

The extreme differences in vaccine deployment around the world have put an end to the pandemic out of sight. Like Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, a South African politician and former executive director of UN Women, wrote in the Independent on Tuesday: “Imagine if, from the onset of the pandemic, world leaders had found the same urgency in ensuring equitable access to vaccines for the world as in adopting instinctive measures like travel bans. Where could we be today? “

So what has the UK done in response to the problem of vaccine inequality around the world? Well let’s just say it could do a lot better. Here’s what happened this year.

UK shared excess doses – but too slowly

In February, the global vaccine sharing center COVAX has started rolling out vaccines in low-income countries – prioritizing the protection of frontline health workers and vulnerable people – but the start has been slow. At the end of May, when its objective was to have distributed 170 million doses, he had only distributed 76 million. In August, the facility downgraded the amount it would be likely to deliver by the end of this year from $ 2 billion to $ 1.425 billion.

The facility was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), and it consolidates surplus vaccine donations shared by countries that have ordered more doses than their population needs. It can also order its own doses and is funded by governments, philanthropic organizations and corporate donations to do so – with the UK contributing £ 250million from its aid budget to the organization in January 2021 .

In a speech, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged in February that the UK would share “the majority of all future surplus vaccines” with low-income countries.

The UK, with a population of 66 million, has now ordered a total of 650 million doses, nearly 10 times its population, from eight different vaccines. There is therefore enough for each adult to receive three doses with a lot of reserve.

By February, he had already ordered 400 million, so there were still excess doses.

Had the UK and other rich countries immediately shared more of their excess doses, it would have helped bolster the COVAX program. However, it was not until the end of July, more than four months later, that the UK government finally shipped the excess doses – 5 million were sent to COVAX and 4 million were sent directly to selected countries.

The expedition was on first batch of 100 million excess doses which the UK has pledged to share, with $ 30million due by the end of 2021, and the rest sent by June 2022.

Since December 6, 2021, 26.2 million doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca have been delivered to COVAX from the UK, according to the House of Commons Library. According to a government announcement on October 31 the grant program was on track to reach $ 30.6 million shared by the end of this year.

The UK has over 100 million excess doses on order. ??

But so far, no spare vaccine has been shared with countries in need, breaking a repeated promise to do so. #DonateDosesNowpic.twitter.com/egOFGProeJ

– Global Citizen UK (@GlblCtznUK) June 3, 2021

The UK has contributed financially to COVAX and has shared some doses – and that’s a good thing – but activists including Global Citizen have called on all high-income countries to share more and act faster. Global Citizen calls on the G20 countries to share 2 billion doses together by the end of 2021, rather than the billion that the group plans to share by next June.

Marie Rumsby, National Director of Global Citizen in the UK, said in July when the UK sent its first batch: ‘It’s great that they’ve started sharing vaccines now – and those 9 million will make a big difference. huge difference for those who receive them – but we need more urgently. “

“We need a billion doses of vaccine shared by the G7 countries by September and two billion by the end of the year,” Rumsby added. “So 9 million is just a drop in the ocean. “

Disturbingly, analysis in the Telegraph found that even with the comparatively lower doses that have been promised, the UK will need to double its donation rate each month in 2022 to meet its own goals.

UK threw away excessive doses

Another troubling result of the delay in taking action on vaccine sharing has been wasted doses.

A report by the Independent on November 15 found, using Freedom of Information requests, that more than 600,000 doses of AstraZeneca in the UK had been discarded because they were out of date.

It was due to a policy change that took place in May that the AstraZeneca vaccine would no longer be offered to young people due to concerns about very rare blood clotting. But instead of giving the excess doses on time to COVAX or directly to low-income countries, the doses were wasted.

Victorine de Milliano, British policy advisor for the non-profit medical association Medicins Sans Frontières, told the newspaper: “At a time when COVID-19 vaccines and other medical tools are scarce and some countries have vaccinated less than 1% of their population, this level of wastage is painful to see. “

An analysis by the NGO Oxfam published in september suggests that the figure could be the tip of the iceberg. They predict that together the G7 countries (seven of the world’s largest economies) will waste up to 100 million doses of vaccines due to their expiration by the end of this year.

UK blocked intellectual property waiver for COVID-19 vaccines

Another solution that has been proposed to help get more vaccines faster in countries that need them has been to relax patent restrictions so that countries can start making vaccines on their own. This would mean that the World Trade Organization (WTO) would agree to waive patents on the COVID-19 vaccine formula, allowing other organizations and companies to use the formula to produce vaccines.

For this to happen, the WTO would have to abandon a law called the TRIPS Agreement. It sounds complicated, but don’t worry, Global Citizen has explained the details here.

The pharmaceutical companies that launched these vaccines for the first time want to protect their intellectual property. So there was resistance to these suggestions and debate on how such a process could take place.

The big advantage of a waiver, however, would be that countries could produce their own vaccines and not have to rely on a slow drop of donations to protect their populations, which activists, including Global Citizen, are advocating would be the way. the fairest go.

It’s not just health advocates and anti-poverty activists who support a TRIPS waiver. Country including South Africa, India,the United States, and France have all argued that intellectual property rights over COVID-19 vaccines should be lifted to boost global manufacturing.

But what about the UK? Sadly, Britain is not on board and it has to be for this to happen. UK trade officials have argued that the intellectual property system has “Played a positive role” by enabling the country’s response to the pandemic and, with countries including Norway, Germany and Switzerland, the UK has blocked proposals for TRIPS waivers at WTO meetings.

If the UK were to receive ‘promoting vaccine equity and ending the pandemic’ as a school project for 2021, we would give a ‘D’. Not quite a failure, but not a passable C rating either. Let’s aim for a higher rating and a lot more effort in 2022. Join us in taking action here to help urge world leaders to take action to end the pandemic for everyone, everywhere.