Surplus of Covid vaccine doses will stand at 1.2bn in wealthy countries by the end of this year

Surplus of Covid vaccine doses will stand at 1.2bn in wealthy countries by the end of this year

Wealthy countries will have a surplus of 1.2 billion coronavirus jabs by the end of the year, even after vaccinating children and offering booster shots, according to an analysis of available supply. Research from analytics firm Airfinity found that the UK, United States, European Union, Canada and Japan already have 500 million doses “available to redistribute today”. By the end of the year that figure is set to hit 1.2bn – even if these countries vaccinate children and roll out booster shots to everyone over 12 – as manufacturing capacity continues to ramp up. Experts say the research, backed by the UK’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, demonstrates that it is access, not supply, which is limiting the global vaccine rollout. “There’s this narrative that there’s been a lack of supply, but we can actually see there’s been an incredible rate by which production has scaled up – we’re now producing 1.5bn doses a month,” Dr Matt Linley, lead analyst on the report, told the Telegraph . “So we don’t have to worry about there being a lack of supply. Actually, governments can donate doses and start giving boosters to those who need them in parallel.” The research comes amid