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
Covalent Organic Framework Nanofluidic Hybrid Membrane for Osmotic Energy Generation
A paper recently published in the journal ACS Applied Energy Materials demonstrated the feasibility of using a covalent organic framework (COF)-based nanofluidic hybrid membranes (NHMs) to attain enhanced interfacial ion transport for the generation of osmotic [...]
Degradable Nanocomposite Removes Antibiotics from Contaminated Water
The excess fluoroquinolones (FQs) discharged into the aquatic environment due to human activities must be removed cost-effectively. In an article published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, the authors fabricated an environment-friendly dealkaline lignin-grafted Fe3O4 nanoparticles [...]
Light-controlled reactions at the nanoscale
Controlling strong electromagnetic fields on nanoparticles is the key to triggering targeted molecular reactions on their surfaces. Such control over strong fields is achieved via laser light. Although laser-induced formation and breaking of molecular [...]
Bright Future for Nanophotonic Chips with Topological Rainbow Device
A paper recently published in the journal Nature Communications demonstrated an effective method to realize on-chip nanophotonic topological rainbow devices using the concept of synthetic dimensions. Importance of Synthetic Dimensions for the Construction of Topological Nanophotonics [...]
Green Approach to Silver Nanoparticle Fabrication with Citrus Fruits
In a study available in the journal Materials Today: Proceedings, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were fabricated using a green method using Citrus X sinensis. Methylthioninium Chloride (MB) Dyes Threatening the Environment Dye and sewage drainage into [...]
Coronavirus ‘ghosts’ found lingering in the gut
Scientists are studying whether long COVID could be linked to viral fragments found in the body months after initial infection. In the chaos of the first months of the coronavirus pandemic, oncologist and geneticist [...]
Experts perplexed over number of people getting long COVID
Public health experts are divided over how many people are getting long COVID-19, a potentially debilitating condition that comes after a patient has recovered from the coronavirus. Ill effects from the condition can include [...]
Four strange COVID symptoms you might not have heard about
Well over two years into the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of COVID cases continue to be recorded around the world every day. With the rise of new variants, the symptoms of COVID have also evolved. Initially, [...]
A new method for exploring the nano-world
Nanoparticles are everywhere. They are in our body as protein aggregates, lipid vesicles, or viruses. They are in our drinking water in the form of impurities. They are in the air we breath as [...]
Breast Cancer Drug Resistance Tackled By Polymer Nanoparticles
Drug resistance is a common phenomenon, with drugs becoming less and less effective as their usage increases. To address this issue, a novel technique employing conjugated polymer-based nanoparticles is presented in the study published [...]
New imaging method makes microrobots visible in the body
Microrobots have the potential to revolutionize medicine. Researchers at the Max Planck ETH Centre for Learning Systems have now developed an imaging technique that for the first time recognises cell-sized microrobots individually and at [...]
Multifunctional Nanocrystals Enhance Cancer Cell Killing Therapies
Scientists have recently developed multifunctional hexagonal NaxWO3 nanocrystals that can serve as microwave sensitizers to kill cancer cells as well as improve the overall chemodynamic therapy (CDT). This study is available as a pre-proof in Chemical Engineering Journal. [...]
Biotech, nanomedicine, and AI combine for health breakthrough predicted by Apple genius Steve Jobs
Apple’s visionary founder, the late Steve Jobs once said, “the biggest innovations of the 21st century will be at the intersection of biology and technology”. And that prediction is coming true in the drug [...]
Making chemical separation more eco-friendly with nanotechnology
Chemical separation processes are essential in the manufacturing of many products from gasoline to whiskey. Such processes are energetically costly, accounting for approximately 10–15 percent of global energy consumption. In particular, the use of [...]
Dual Function SARS-CoV-2 Sensor for Point of Contact Testing
Scientists have recently developed electrochemical immunosensors based on graphene oxide−gold (GO−Au) nanocomposites. These immunosensors are highly sensitive with dual function, i.e., they can detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antigen and antibody. [...]
Are COVID surges becoming more predictable? New Omicron variants offer a hint
Omicron relatives called BA.4 and BA.5 are behind a fresh wave of COVID-19 in South Africa, and could be signs of a more predictable future for SARS-CoV-2. Here we go again. Nearly six months [...]