Worldwide vaccine inequality threatens to unleash the next COVID-19 variant.

The emergence of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529 BA.1) near Johannesburg heralded the development of an unprecedented number of new COVID-19 infections across South Africa in November 2021. Omicron and its subvariants would soon become the dominant strains across Africa, Europe, and the United States. As with the Delta variant (B.1.617.2), Omicron emerged from an industrialized nation with one of the lowest vaccination rates of any well-developed country. The emergence of variants from undervaccinated regions is a direct consequence of the virus replicating unchecked through an unprotected population. Despite this, the United States and other higher-income nations have adopted a strategy of preferentially inoculating their citizens with multiple and booster doses, whereas lower-income nations struggle with vaccine availability, infrastructure, and their own vaccine manufacturing capability. Much more needs to be done to address worldwide vaccine inequities and prevent the emergence of the next devastating variant. The persistence of the pandemic anywhere remains an ongoing threat to citizens everywhere.

Conquering COVID: How Global Vaccine Inequality Risks Prolonging the Pandemic.

The development of effective vaccines during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has been deemed a towering achievement in modern science. Since the end of 2020, the vaccine rollout has offered the promise of vanquishing the pandemic in the United States and other developed countries. Even as the United States and other wealthier nations encounter both setbacks and successes in their coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) eradication efforts, developing countries around the world are likely to face far less fortunate fates. With much of the world's vaccine production and distribution capacity reserved by wealthier nations, impoverished countries stand to face devastating financial, social, and health-related impacts. The consequences of this disparity will resonate deeply into the collective fabric of these countries, ensuring that the economic and geopolitical imbalance between developed and developing nations will widen even more substantially. Wealthier countries must do more to eliminate the inequality that exists in widespread SARS-CoV-2 vaccine availability in less-developed nations. Like HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and other global epidemics, COVID-19 cannot be forgotten just because the pandemic is eventually contained from the shores of wealthier nations. For as long as the pandemic rages in any corner of the globe, the world will never be truly rid of COVID-19. And all nations, rich or poor, will suffer the consequences.