Equitable Access to Vaccines: Myth or Reality?

IMF Working Papers, December 16, 2022

Source details

Quantifies the importance of various factors in driving vaccination rates across countries.
Factors analyzed include: vaccine deliveries, demographic structure, health and transport infrastructure, and development level.
Estimates the contribution of these factors to vaccination inequality across countries during 2021-22.

Vaccination progress varies greatly across countries, with low- and middle-income countries having much lower vaccination rates than advanced countries.
Initially, limited vaccine supply contributed to the slow pace of vaccinations in low-income countries.
As supply constraints eased toward the end of 2021, in-country distribution challenges and vaccine hesitancy became more prominent constraints.
Much of the vaccination inequality in 2021-22 was driven by the lack of access to vaccines which is beyond countries’ control.
Although vaccination inequality declined over time, access to vaccines remains the dominant driver of vaccination inequality.

Subject: COVID-19, Health, Income inequality, National accounts, Population and demographics
Keywords: access, country distribution challenge, COVID-19, Global, Income inequality, inequality, Sub-Saharan Africa, vaccination, vaccination equality, vaccination inequality, vaccination rate, vaccine hesitancy

IMF Working Paper No. 2022/257 (Hakobyan, Rawlings, Yao), December 16, 2022.