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About 50 countries have started vaccinating their people against Covid-19, just a year after China’s first alert signaled the start of the pandemic.
China, where the new coronavirus first emerged, was also the first to begin vaccinations during the summer, not waiting for a vaccine to be formally authorized, but targeting the most vulnerable.
To date, nearly 5 million Chinese have been vaccinated. Beijing on Thursday granted “conditional” market approval to a Sinopharm vaccine with a reported 79 percent efficacy rate against Covid-19.
Russia followed on Dec. 5, launching vaccines for those considered high-risk with its controversial Sputnik V vaccine, which has since been approved in Belarus and Argentina, which launched their vaccination campaigns on Tuesday.
Algeria will follow them in January.
Britain led the way in the Western world, authorizing the vaccine made by the US-German pharmaceutical alliance Pfizer-BioNTech. Its vaccination campaign began on December 8, and by December 27, about 950,000 people had received their injections, according to official figures released on Thursday (Friday in Manila).
Britain was also the first to approve the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on Wednesday. It will be administered for the first time on January 4.
Canada and the United States began their vaccination campaigns on December 14, Switzerland on December 23, Serbia on 24, the vast majority of the European Union on December 27, Norway on Sunday and Iceland on Tuesday. They are all using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The United States and Canada are also the first two countries to have licensed the vaccine by the pharmaceutical company Moderna, which is pending approval by the EU on January 6.
About 2.8 million Americans have already received their first dose of the Covid-19 jab. In the 27 countries of the European Union, Germany has given the most injections so far, with more than 130,000 in five days.
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates was the first to launch its vaccination campaign with doses of China Sinopharm, on December 14 in the capital Abu Dhabi. Dubai began its vaccinations on December 23, using doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain launched their campaigns on December 17, Israel two days later, Qatar on 23, Kuwait on 24 and Oman on December 27.
All used the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, except for Bahrain, which also uses Sinopharm from China.
Israel, which has set itself the ambitious goal of inoculating a quarter of its population in a month, has already injected almost 800,000 people. Bahrain has vaccinated almost 60,000 and Oman more than 3,000.
Turkey, which has received doses of Sinovac from China, will launch its vaccination campaign in mid-January.
In Latin America, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica were the first to launch, on December 24, jabs with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
In Asia, Singapore launched its campaign with the same vaccine on Wednesday.
Other countries on the Asian continent, however, have decided to take their time: India, Japan and Taiwan plan to start vaccinations in the first quarter of 2021 and the Philippines and Pakistan in the second quarter, while Afghanistan and Thailand plan to start in mid-2021. .
In sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, vaccines have yet to take off. But in West Africa, Guinea this week administered its first doses of Sputnik V from Russia on a trial basis.
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