The Covid-19 vaccine rollout: which emerging economies are leading the way?

A growing number of countries around the world are launching Covid-19 vaccine programmes, generating optimism that there is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

However, while some developing economies are successfully moving forwards with their own programmes, others have expressed concern about an emerging global imbalance in distribution.

Governments around the world spent €93bn on Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics in 2020, around €86.5bn of which went to vaccine producers, according to the kENUP Foundation, a non-profit organisation.

Of this total, 32% came from the US, 24% from the EU, and a total of 13% from Japan and South Korea. Thanks in part to such investment, the UK, the US, China, India and Russia have all developed clinically approved Covid-19 vaccines. As a result of national and multinational initiatives, approximately 39m doses had been administered in…