NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Several hundred people line up every morning, starting before dawn, in a grassy area outside Nairobi’s largest hospital in hopes of receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Sometimes the line moves smoothly, while other days, the staff tells them that nothing is available and that they should return tomorrow.
Halfway around the world, in an Atlanta church, two workers with high doses of vaccine waited on Wednesday hours for anyone to show up, who listened to the music while listening to a laptop. For a period of six hours, only one person entered through the door.
The dramatic contrast highlights the great disparity around the world. In richer countries, people can often choose and choose from several available vaccines, enter a location close to their home, and get a shot in a matter of minutes. Emerging clinics, like the one in Atlanta, bring vaccines to rural areas and urban neighborhoods, but it is common for them to have very few consumers.
In the developing world, supply is limited and uncertain. Just over 3% of people across Africa have been completely vaccinated and health officials and citizens often have little idea of what will be available overnight. More vaccines have been flowing in recent weeks, but the director of the World Health Organization in Africa said on Thursday that the continent will get 25% less doses than expected by the end of the year, in part due to the launch of booster shots in richer counties like the United States.
Bidian Okoth recalled spending more than three hours in line at a Nairobi hospital, only being told to return home because there were not enough doses. But a friend who traveled to the United States was shot almost immediately after arriving there with a shot he chose, “like candy,” he said.
“We are struggling with what time in the morning we have to wake up to get the first shot. Then you feel like people are choosing their vaccines. This is super, super excessive, ”he said.
Okoth said his uncle died of COVID-19 in June and had twice given up vaccinating because of the length of the lines, although he was eligible because of his age. Death caused Okoth, a health advocate, to seek a dose for himself.
He stopped so often at a hospital when he was on his way to work that a doctor “got tired of seeing me” and told Okoth he would call him when doses were available. Late last month, after a new vaccine donation arrived from Britain, he was shot.
The disparity occurs as the United States approaches to offer booster shots to large segments of the population, although it struggles to convince Americans to get vaccinated in the first place. President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered a sweep of new federal vaccine requirements for up to 100 million Americans, including private sector employees, as the country faces the growing delta variant of COVID-19.
About 53% of the U.S. population is vaccinated and the country averages more than 150,000 new cases of COVID-19 a day, along with 1,500 deaths. Africa has had more than 7.9 million confirmed cases, including more than 200,000 deaths, and the highly infectious delta variant has also recently boosted an increase in new cases.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted on Wednesday that rich countries with a large supply of coronavirus vaccines should stop offering booster shots by the end of the year and make doses available to the poorest countries.
John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters on Thursday that “we haven’t seen enough science” to push decisions on when to administer booster shots.
“Without that, we are playing,” he said, urging countries to send doses to countries suffering from “vaccine hunger”.
In the US, vaccines are easy to find, but many people are hesitant to get them.
At Northwest Atlanta Church, a nonprofit group offered Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer vaccines for free without an appointment from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., but site manager Riley Erickson , spent much of the day waiting in an air-conditioned room. full of empty chairs, though the group had contacted the neighbors and the church had announced the location to their large congregation.
Erickson, with the disaster assistance organization CORE, said the vaccination rate in the area was low, so he was not surprised by the small turnout. The only person who showed up was a college student.
“When you strive to get into areas where there is less interest, that’s the result,” he said. However, it took away that CORE needed to spend more time in the community.
A second vaccination site run by county officials, this one in downtown Atlanta, had a little more foot traffic during lunch time, but not enough to cause even the slightest delay.
Margaret Herro, director of CORE’s Georgia, said the group has experienced an increase in vaccinations at its emerging sites in recent weeks amid an increase in COVID-19 fueled by the delta variant and full approval of the FDA of the Pfizer vaccine. He has managed more than 55,000 shots from late March to late August at hundreds of locations across the state, including schools and farmers markets. He has also targeted meat packaging plants and other jobs, where participation is better, and plans to focus more on those places, Herro said.
“We definitely don’t feel like it’s time to leave us behind,” he said.
In Nairobi, Okoth believes there should be a global commitment to equity in vaccine administration so that everyone has a basic level of immunity as quickly as possible.
“If at least everyone gets a first shot, I don’t think anyone will care if others have even six booster shots,” he said.
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Thanawala reported from Atlanta.