On the way to ending the pandemic, more people have been vaccinated than the total number of cases so far: data

(Reuters) – More people are now vaccinated against COVID-19 than were infected with the virus that swept the world last year, a milestone on the way to ending the pandemic, based on data released on Wednesday.

Despite historical data, it is unclear how long it will take to vaccinate the world. Many of the vaccinees received only one of the two necessary doses.

A total of 104.9 million doses of vaccine have been administered, according to Oxford University’s Our World in Data, and the latest data released on Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total vaccine now exceeds 104.1 million cases of COVID-19 infection on a global Reuters tracker here.

COVID-19 infections are still on the rise in 44 countries and the virus has killed at least 2.26 million people worldwide, according to the Reuters tracker. Health experts are rushing to vaccinate as much as possible in the face of new variants that are more contagious.

Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center here confirms global purchases of 7.7 billion doses with another 5 billion doses under negotiation or reserved as optional expansions of existing businesses.

Israel leads the world, having administered sufficient doses of vaccine to 28% of its population, assuming that each person needs two doses, according to Our World in Data.

The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called on Tuesday for greater cooperation between nations to achieve global vaccination on the scale necessary to end the pandemic.

“Despite the growing number of vaccine options, current manufacturing capacity meets only a fraction of the global need,” he wrote in Foreign Policy magazine.

“Allowing the majority of the world’s population not to be vaccinated will not only perpetuate unnecessary illness and death and the pain of continuous blockages, but will also generate new virus mutations as COVID-19 continues to spread among unprotected populations,” he wrote. .ly / 3rdGW3Qd.

Rich countries vying for the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine must consider the situation in the poorest parts of the world, the WHO said last week, warning that the accumulation of vaccines “keeps the pandemic alight”.

GRAPHIC-COVID-19 global tracker: here