Vaccine drive expands as Covid probe criticises global response

Vaccine drive expands as Covid probe criticises global response

Countries around the world stepped up their coronavirus vaccine campaigns on Monday, with Russia offering jabs to all citizens, while an independent probe found fault with the early response to the pandemic.

Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and Beijing could have acted faster when Covid-19 first surfaced in China a year ago, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response concluded in a report.

It added that countries where the virus was likely to spread should have put containment measures in place immediately.

With the global death toll now past two million, many governments are betting on mass vaccination to throttle the pandemic, while tightening lockdown measures at the same time.

Nationwide rollouts from Brazil to Azerbaijan were getting under way on Monday, while Britain and France were widening inoculations to all elderly people.

In Russia, the government invited all citizens to sign up for the homegrown Sputnik V jab — but while it was widely available in Moscow, many regions reported receiving only between 5,000 and 15,000 doses in the country of 146 million.

India's campaign was also facing teething problems as it emerged that almost a third of the 300,000 people