As of March, 2022, just over 1 year has passed since the authorisation of first-generation vaccines against COVID-19. Since then, almost 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally. Although the delivery of this number of vaccines is a remarkable achievement, there is still a disparity in vaccine equity, access, and affordability between high-income and low-income countries. According to the Global Dashboard for Vaccine Equity (established by the UN Development Programme, WHO, and the University of Oxford), as of Jan 18, 2022, approximately 67.6% of people in high-income countries have had at least one dose, compared with only approximately 11.36% of people in low-income countries.This inequity has major negative implications for global pandemic control; thus, there is an imperative to develop more affordable, scalable, and easily distributable vaccines.
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