After months of struggle, the U.N.-backed Covax alliance will soon have many more doses, promising relief for vaccine shortages in poorer countries. But it faces a deepening crisis: difficulties getting shots into arms as the Delta variant spreads.
Deaths from Covid-19 were surging across Africa in June when 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Chad. The delivery seemed proof that the United Nations-backed program to immunize the world could get the most desirable vaccines to the least developed nations. Yet five weeks later, Chad’s health minister said, 94,000 doses remained unused.
Nearby in Benin, only 267 shots were being given each day, a pace so slow that 110,000 of the program’s AstraZeneca doses expired. Across Africa, confidential documents from July indicated, the program was monitoring at least nine countries where it said doses intended for the poor were at risk of spoiling this summer.
The vaccine pileup illustrates one of the most serious but largely unrecognized problems facing the immunization program as it tries to recover from months of missteps and disappointments: difficulty getting doses from airport tarmacs into people’s arms.
Known as Covax, the program was supposed to be a global powerhouse, a multibillion-dollar alliance of international health bodies and nonprofits that would ensure through sheer buying power that poor countries received vaccines as quickly as the rich.
Instead, Covax has struggled to acquire doses: It stands half a billion short of its goal. Poor countries are dangerously unprotected as the Delta variant runs rampant, just the scenario that Covax was created to prevent.
The urgent need to vaccinate the world goes far beyond protecting people in poor nations. The longer the virus circulates, the more dangerous it can become, even for vaccinated people in wealthy countries.
Without billions more shots, experts warn, new variants could keep emerging, endangering all nations.
News
Can introducing peanuts early prevent allergies? Real-world data confirms it helps
New evidence from a large U.S. primary care network shows that early peanut introduction, endorsed in 2015 and 2017 guidelines, was followed by a marked decline in clinician-diagnosed peanut and overall food allergies among [...]
Nanoparticle blueprints reveal path to smarter medicines
Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the delivery vehicles of modern medicine, carrying cancer drugs, gene therapies and vaccines into cells. Until recently, many scientists assumed that all LNPs followed more or less the same blueprint, [...]
How nanomedicine and AI are teaming up to tackle neurodegenerative diseases
When I first realized the scale of the challenge posed by neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), I felt simultaneously humbled and motivated. These disorders are not caused [...]
Self-Organizing Light Could Transform Computing and Communications
USC engineers have demonstrated a new kind of optical device that lets light organize its own route using the principles of thermodynamics. Instead of relying on switches or digital control, the light finds its own [...]
Groundbreaking New Way of Measuring Blood Pressure Could Save Thousands of Lives
A new method that improves the accuracy of interpreting blood pressure measurements taken at the ankle could be vital for individuals who are unable to have their blood pressure measured on the arm. A newly developed [...]
Scientist tackles key roadblock for AI in drug discovery
The drug development pipeline is a costly and lengthy process. Identifying high-quality "hit" compounds—those with high potency, selectivity, and favorable metabolic properties—at the earliest stages is important for reducing cost and accelerating the path [...]
Nanoplastics with environmental coatings can sneak past the skin’s defenses
Plastic is ubiquitous in the modern world, and it's notorious for taking a long time to completely break down in the environment - if it ever does. But even without breaking down completely, plastic [...]
Chernobyl scientists discover black fungus feeding on deadly radiation
It looks pretty sinister, but it might actually be incredibly helpful When reactor number four in Chernobyl exploded, it triggered the worst nuclear disaster in history, one which the surrounding area still has not [...]
Long COVID Is Taking A Silent Toll On Mental Health, Here’s What Experts Say
Months after recovering from COVID-19, many people continue to feel unwell. They speak of exhaustion that doesn’t fade, difficulty breathing, or an unsettling mental haze. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that recovery from the [...]
Study Delivers Cancer Drugs Directly to the Tumor Nucleus
A new peptide-based nanotube treatment sneaks chemo into drug-resistant cancer cells, providing a unique workaround to one of oncology’s toughest hurdles. CiQUS researchers have developed a novel molecular strategy that allows a chemotherapy drug to [...]
Scientists Begin $14.2 Million Project To Decode the Body’s “Hidden Sixth Sense”
An NIH-supported initiative seeks to unravel how the nervous system tracks and regulates the body’s internal organs. How does your brain recognize when it’s time to take a breath, when your blood pressure has [...]
Scientists Discover a New Form of Ice That Shouldn’t Exist
Researchers at the European XFEL and DESY are investigating unusual forms of ice that can exist at room temperature when subjected to extreme pressure. Ice comes in many forms, even when made of nothing but water [...]
Nobel-winning, tiny ‘sponge crystals’ with an astonishing amount of inner space
The 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi on Oct. 8, 2025, for the development of metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, which are tunable crystal structures with extremely [...]
Harnessing Green-Synthesized Nanoparticles for Water Purification
A new review reveals how plant- and microbe-derived nanoparticles can power next-gen water disinfection, delivering cleaner, safer water without the environmental cost of traditional treatments. A recent review published in Nanomaterials highlights the potential of green-synthesized nanomaterials (GSNMs) in [...]
Brainstem damage found to be behind long-lasting effects of severe Covid-19
Damage to the brainstem - the brain's 'control center' - is behind long-lasting physical and psychiatric effects of severe Covid-19 infection, a study suggests. Using ultra-high-resolution scanners that can see the living brain in [...]
CT scan changes over one year predict outcomes in fibrotic lung disease
Researchers at National Jewish Health have shown that subtle increases in lung scarring, detected by an artificial intelligence-based tool on CT scans taken one year apart, are associated with disease progression and survival in [...]
