Africa’s vaccine shortages and the global apathy about protecting Black lives

Getting vaccines to the continent is not an issue of charity. Many African countries had the money to buy vaccines, but richer countries had what counts, which is power and access. While wealthy nations struck up huge deals with pharmaceutical companies, African countries were largely left to rely on global distribution agreements through the global Covax effort, backed by the Geneva-based Gavi. But Covax set an initial target of vaccinating at least 20 percent of poorer countries’ populations — a low bar of a goal that it will likely not be able to meet, given current projections.