(Reuters) – More people are now vaccinated against COVID-19 than are infected with the virus that has engulfed the world in the past year, a milestone on the way to ending the pandemic, based on data reported Wednesday.
Despite the historical data, it remains unclear how long it will take to vaccinate the world. Many of the vaccinees received only one of the two required doses.
A total of 104.9 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to Our World in Data here, based in Oxford, and according to the latest data from Wednesday from the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here. The total number of vaccinated cases now exceeds 104.1 million COVID-19 cases of infection in a global Reuters tracker here.
COVID-19 infections are still on the rise in 44 countries here, and the virus has killed at least 2.26 million people worldwide, according to the Reuters tracker. Health experts race to vaccinate as much as possible against new, more contagious varieties.
Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center here confirms global purchases of 7.7 billion doses with an additional 5 billion doses being negotiated or reserved as optional extensions to existing deals.
Israel is leading the world, with adequate vaccine doses for 28% of the population, assuming everyone needs two doses, according to Our World in Data.
World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday called for more cooperation between countries to achieve global vaccination on a scale necessary to end the pandemic.
“Despite the growing number of vaccine options, current manufacturing capacity only meets a fraction of the global need,” he wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.
“If the majority of the world’s population remains unvaccinated, it will not only perpetuate unnecessary illnesses and deaths and the pain of ongoing lockdowns, but also spawn new virus mutations as COVID-19 continues to spread among unprotected populations,” he wrote bit.ly / 3oGW3Qd.
Rich countries bickering over the supply of COVID-19 vaccines should consider the situation in poorer parts of the world, the WHO said last week, warning that the hoarding of shots “is keeping the pandemic aflame.”
GRAPHIC-COVID-19 global tracker: here
Editing by Howard Goller and Lisa Shumaker