Over 200 million vaccine doses administered globally

PARIS: More than 200 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered in at least 107 countries and territories, according to an AFP count based on official sources on Saturday.

In total 201,042,149 doses had been given worldwide by 1000 GMT -- a figure that does not include the latest data from China and Russia, who have stopped making their progress public in recent days.

Some 45 percent of the injections took places in countries belonging to the wealthy G7 club, whose members account for just 10 percent of the global population.

Its seven countries -- the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan -- promised Friday to share doses more fairly with worse-off countries.

G7 leaders plan to more than double their total support to worldwide coronavirus vaccinations, to $7.5 billion, including through the World Health Organization-led Covax scheme.

More broadly, 92 percent of doses worldwide have been given in countries classified by the World Bank as “high-income” or “upper-middle income”, accounting for around half of global population. Among the 29 countries the institution ranks as “low-income”, only Guinea and Rwanda have begun vaccinating. Israel is far ahead of any other country worldwide with almost half its population having received at least one vaccine dose.

One in three Israelis has received both doses needed for full protection.

Other countries to have given more than 10 percent of their people at least one dose include Britain (25 percent), Bahrain (16), the US (13), Chile (12), the Seychelles (43) and the Maldives (12). In absolute figures, the US has injected more people than any other nation, with 59.6 million doses.

China had reached 40.5 million by February 9, while Britain is at 17.5 million, India 10.7 million and Israel 7.1 million.

Meanwhile, almost 300 homeless people have been vaccinated against coronavirus in Romania, making it one of the first European countries to single out people who are sleeping rough, health authorities said on Saturday.”These people are among the most exposed to infection risk. It’s hard for most of them to follow infection control measures,” junior health minister Andrei Baciu told AFP.

Bucharest decided to move the homeless up the priority scale -- following in Denmark’s footsteps -- after pressure from charity groups.

Mobile vaccination teams have visited shelters in several towns including the capital over the past few days.

Over 1,300 people are registered as homeless in Romania -- with the real number estimated to be several times larger -- and 282 of them have received a first vaccine dose and 246 have had both.

One vaccination official said the government “wants to reach any homeless people who want to be immunised” and will keep up the programme in the coming days.

But many of those living on the street lack reliable information about the shots and can be distrustful, said Marian Ursan of charity Carusel, which distributes food, clothing and medicines to around 300 homeless people in Bucharest.

With almost 20,000 Covid-19 deaths among its 19 million people, Romania has so far vaccinated 771,000 since late December.

Around 224,000 people have received one dose and 547,000 both doses.

Argentina’s health minister resigned late on Friday after it emerged that friends of his had been able to skip the line for a Covid-19 vaccination.

Health Minister Gines Gonzalez Garci stepped down after President Alberto Fernandez called on him to quit in the wake of the scandal.

“Responding to your express request, I present my resignation from the position of minister of health,” Gonzalez Garcia, a 75-year-old doctor, wrote in a letter addressed to the president.

He will be replaced by one of his deputy ministers, 48-year-old Carla Vizzotti, who was responsible for securing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for Argentina, the first country in America to approve and use it.

Meanwhile, Britain has circulated a draft resolution to members of the UN Security Council calling on rich countries to donate doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to poorer and war-torn states, according to a text of the draft seen by AFP late on Friday.

The resolution, submitted on Thursday by Britain to the other 14 members of the Security Council, "emphasises the need for solidarity, equity, and efficacy and invites donation of vaccine doses from developed economies to low- and middle-income countries and other countries in need."

The draft resolution was announced on Wednesday by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a session of the Security Council, and estimates that around 160 million people worldwide are living in a conflict zone or unstable circumstances that puts them at risk of not receiving a vaccination.