How COVID-19 vaccine is driving immunity inequality — and what this means for you

It must be painful to be Bill Gates right now. You invest about $1.75 billion — over N800 billion — in tackling COVID-19, yet some of your targets are far from being met. In 2020, the Gates Foundation invested hundreds of millions of dollars in ensuring poor countries get the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time rich countries get it.  

This week, on a call with the Gates Foundation, I reminded Bill Gates about this particular target and how that has remained a mirage despite the billions. In his response, he expressed frustrations about the primary healthcare systems in Nigeria and spoke further about what he and Melinda, his wife and co-chair of the Gates Foundation, call “immunity inequality”. The new layer of inequality I will explain shortly.

After the call, I looked up the data again, and here is the shocker: Over 80 million people have now taken the COVID-19 vaccine across the world. Less than 60 — yes, less than just SIXTY — are from west Africa. Less than 600 in north Africa, and none in east Africa. Seychelles has had over 20,000 jabs as the leading country on the continent. The US has had over 25 million doses.

No COVID-19 vaccine has been administered in Nigeria.

In all of Africa — with over 1.3 billion people — less than 30,000 COVID-19 vaccine shots have been administered. Some may argue that Africa does not have many COVID cases as the rest of the world. But that is not entirely true. South Africa has had 1.43 million COVID-19 cases with zero vaccine jabs. Israel has had about 622,000 cases but over four million vaccine shots have been given. This is immunity inequality.

As the Gates defined it, immunity inequality is “a future where the wealthiest people have access to a COVID-19 vaccine, while the rest of the world doesn’t”. But that future is no longer to come, that future is here. Rich Nigerians like former vice-president Atiku Abubakar can afford to take the COVID-19 vaccine elsewhere while their country figures out its way to safety. To put in the Naija parlance; Atiku immune system and your own no be mate.

Forbes reported two weeks ago that vaccine vaccinations have now become a thing — with $55,000, you can travel to UAE for a month and get your immunity shots. Immunity inequality.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

I’m not sure who you are; you could be one of the 90 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty. Or you could be one of those living just above the poverty line. Both classes cannot afford a vaccine vacation and are not likely to get a shot anytime soon or am I just bold to assume you want the vaccine in the first place? If you’re in Nigeria’s top one percent, then my worry is not about you — you can get on the next plane to UAE.

“Already, wealthy nations have spent months prepurchasing doses of vaccine to start immunizing their people the moment those vaccines are approved,” Melinda Gates said in the foundation’s annual letter. “But as things stand now, low- and middle-income countries will only be able to cover about one out of five people who live there over the next year.”

If data from the Gates Foundation is accurate, this means the regular Nigerian would not be getting any vaccine this year. By the end of the year, everyone interested in COVID-19 vaccines in the US is expected to have got the jab — going by the current pace of over a million doses per day.

According to the UN, there were at least five layers of inequality before the pandemic. The multi-dimensional inequality framework by Oxfam and the London School of Economics (LSE) suggests there are seven domains of inequality affecting people’s livelihood across the world. Immunity inequality adds another layer to all of that.

This inequality will affect travel, business interactions between rich and poor nations, and may ultimately cut life expectancy in poor countries. This will be a new challenge for our already disadvantaged people. Today, the deal is that; if you do not have a COVID-19 negative test, you cannot travel. I’m betting that tomorrow, it will be “if you have not been vaccinated, you cannot come to XYZ countries”.

Rich countries like Israel, UAE, UK, US — after vaccinating their people –may make this demand of us all: No vaccine, no travel. This should worry us.

This inequality was avoidable — at least for a country like Nigeria. The rich countries getting the vaccine ahead of the rest of us were not only wealthy but proactive. They entered a pre-production agreement with the big pharma to get the vaccine first, a step Nigeria could have easily taken. The bank we are now breaking to get late 2021 or early 2022 doses could have been put to use earlier.

Inequalities are like onions, the layers are never-ending, all we can see thus far may simply be the beginning of the beginning of what this would become in the future of this new inequality.

You can continue the conversation with me on Twitter @OluwamayowaTJ.