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About fifty countries around the world have already started their vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus. China and Russia were the first two, and the United Kingdom was the first from the West.
Some fifty countries have already started their vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus, just a year after the first alert launched by the Chinese authorities to the World Health Organization (WHO). (We recommend: Here is what you need to know to understand the world of COVID-19 vaccines)
China, the first country
China was the first country since the summer to start a vaccination campaign reserved for those most at risk (employees and students going abroad, carers, etc.).
More than five million doses of Chinese experimental vaccines have been injected in the country, which officially approved one developed by Sinopharm on Thursday.
Russia followed on December 5, when it began vaccinating at-risk workers with Sputnik V, the vaccine developed by the Russian National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamaleya. (You may be interested: Colombia will begin mass vaccination against the coronavirus in February 2021)
That vaccine has since been approved by Belarus and Argentina, which began their vaccination campaign on Tuesday. Algeria will follow in their footsteps in January.
A look at the West
The United Kingdom was, for its part, the first Western country to authorize the vaccine developed by the US-German alliance Pfizer-BioNTech.
Its immunization campaign began on December 8, and more than 950,000 people have already received the first of two doses of the vaccine as of December 27, according to official figures released Thursday.
The country was also the first to approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine on Wednesday, which will be injected into the British from January 4. (You may be interested: “Variants of the coronavirus do not require reconsidering the efficacy of vaccines”, WHO)
In the West, Canada and the United States followed on December 14. Subsequently, Switzerland on the 23rd and Serbia on the 24th, almost the entire European Union on Sunday, Norway on Sunday and Iceland on Tuesday, all with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The United States and Canada were also the first two countries to have authorized the vaccine from the American laboratory Moderna, on which the EU will issue a decision on January 6.
More than 2.8 million Americans have already received a dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the EU, Germany is the country that has vaccinated the most so far, with more than 130,000 doses in five days.
Israel’s sprint in the Middle East
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates was the first to launch its campaign with the Chinese Sinopharm doses on December 14 in Abu Dhabi, the capital. Also in the Emirates, Dubai began immunizing on December 23 with doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain began their campaign on December 17, Israel on December 19, Qatar on 23, Kuwait on 24. Oman is due to start its campaign on Sunday. All of these countries initially chose Pfizer-BioNTech.
Israel, which has committed to a true sprint to immunize a quarter of its population in a month, has already injected more than 800,000 doses, Bahrain more than 60,000 and Oman more than 3,000, according to official figures.
Other countries
In Latin America, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica began their campaign on December 24, with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Argentina started last Tuesday.
In Asia, Singapore began its vaccination on Wednesday with the same product. The other countries on the continent do not seem to be in the same rush: India, Japan and Taiwan plan to start their campaigns in the first quarter, the Philippines and Pakistan will wait for the second, and Afghanistan and Thailand in mid-2021.
In Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, there are still no vaccination plans. Guinea Conakry, which began on Wednesday to inject the first 60 doses of Sputnik V before deciding whether or not to launch its campaign, appears as a pioneer on its continent.
