Efforts to vaccinate the world lagging despite steps to provide more doses

Even with more vaccines on the horizon, much of the world will most likely keep waiting for doses

The World Health Organization approved one Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine and could soon approve another. The Biden administration has backed waiving intellectual property protections for vaccines, which could make it easier for more countries to make them.

But the campaign to vaccinate the world is floundering, and experts warn it will take more to reverse the trend.

The need is urgent: The virus is spreading more rapidly than ever, driven largely by surges in South America and India. The longer it can spread unchecked, the more time it has to mutate into more contagious variants that could evade the protections of vaccines.

Rich countries have been hoarding doses — the United States has given at least one shot to over 44 percent of its population, while the figure in Africa is 1 percent, according to a University of Oxford database. The global vaccination drive has been further slowed by the enormous need for vaccines within China and India, two major manufacturers that are keeping more doses for domestic use.

The W.H.O.’s approval on Friday of China’s Sinopharm vaccine was celebrated by scientists because it allows the shot to be included in Covax, the sputtering global initiative to promote equitable vaccine distribution. As of Tuesday, Covax had shipped 54 million doses, less than a quarter of its earlier April target.

Vaccine access could improve even more next week when the W.H.O. considers another Chinese shot, made by Sinovac. But the fanfare may be short-lived. While China has claimed it can make up to 5 billion doses by the end of this year, Chinese officials say the country is struggling to manufacture enough doses for its own population and are cautioning a pandemic-weary world to keep expectations in check.

“This should be the golden time for China to practice its vaccine diplomacy. The problem is, at the same time, China itself is facing a shortage,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “So in terms of global access to vaccines, I don’t expect the situation to significantly improve in the coming two to three months.”

Severe production problems in India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, have left just 2.3 percent of its population fully vaccinated. In some states, people are being turned away from vaccination centers that have run out of doses. As India has been crushed by a record virus surge, it has halted vaccine exports. That has delayed critical Covax shipments.

India’s government has promised to fast-track approvals of foreign-made vaccines. But a waiver of patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, which the Biden administration is backing, would need approval from the World Trade Organization. And even then, experts warn that pharmaceutical companies in India and elsewhere would need technological help to make the vaccines and time to ramp up production. ...