Opinion: Vaccine equity is essential. Vaccine makers need to drop barriers to reaching refugees and other displaced people
National-level Covid-19 vaccination figures can tell a lot about how the battle against the pandemic is going. But they say nothing about the populations most likely to be missed altogether: the many millions who aren’t part of any country’s vaccine roll-out plan: stateless people, refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people, vulnerable migrants, and people living amid conflicts or humanitarian emergencies.
The world now has a system in place that can reach them. Last month, 1.6 million vaccine doses landed in Tehran, earmarked for 800,000 Afghan refugees, migrants, and displaced people living within Iran’s borders. But the effort to deliver more doses to vulnerable populations is being hindered by some vaccine manufacturers.
