Paris, France.
About fifty countries have already started their vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus, barely a year after the first warning from the Chinese authorities to the World Health Organization (WHO).
China is leading the way
China was the first country since the summer to launch a vaccination campaign reserved for those most at risk (workers and students going abroad, carers, etc.).
More than five million doses of Chinese experimental vaccines have been injected into the country, which officially approved a vaccine developed by Sinopharm on Thursday.
Russia followed suit on December 5, when it began vaccinating high-risk workers with Sputnik V, the vaccine developed by the Russian National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamaleya.
That vaccine has since been approved by Belarus and Argentina, who started their vaccination campaign on Tuesday. Algeria will follow in their footsteps in January.
The United Kingdom, first in the West
The United Kingdom, for its part, was the first Western country to approve the vaccine developed by the US-German Pfizer-BioNTech alliance. His vaccination campaign began on December 8, and according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, more than 800,000 people have already received the first of two doses of the vaccine.
The country was also the first to approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine on Wednesday, which will be injected into the British from January 4.
In the West, Canada and the United States followed on December 14. Then Switzerland on the 23rd and Serbia on the 24th, almost all of the 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 be licensed for the modern American laboratory vaccine.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 2.8 million Americans have already received a dose. In the EU, Germany is the country that has vaccinated the most to date, with more than 130,000 doses in five days.
The sprint of Israel
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates was the first to launch their campaign with the Chinese Sinopharm doses on December 14 in Abu Dhabi, the capital. Also in the Emirates, Dubai began immunizing with doses of Pfizer-BioNTech on December 23.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain started their campaign on December 17, Israel on December 19, Qatar on 23 and Kuwait on 24. Oman will start its campaign on Sunday. All these countries initially chose Pfizer-BioNTech.
Israel, which has committed to a real 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.
In Latin America, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica, their campaign began with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines on December 24.
In Asia, Singapore started vaccinating with the same product on Wednesday. The other countries on the continent don’t seem to be in the same hurry: India, Japan and Taiwan plan to launch their campaigns in the first quarter, the Philippines and Pakistan are waiting for the second, and Afghanistan and Thailand in mid-2021.
There are no vaccination plans yet in Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. Guinea Conakry, which began injecting the first 60 doses of Sputnik V on Wednesday before deciding whether or not to launch its campaign, is emerging as a pioneer on its continent.