A health worker holds a vial of an Indian-made COVID-19 vaccine in Kathmandu, Nepal, January 2021 
Navesh Chitrakar / Reuters

By now, it has become clear that the means to end the COVID-19 pandemic will reach people in poor countries far later than they will get to people in wealthy ones. Only one of the 29 poorest countries in the world—Guinea in West Africa—has begun vaccinations, and it has so far managed to immunize just 55 people. Half of the planned 2021 supplies of the leading vaccine candidates have already been gobbled up by a small contingent of wealthy nations, including Australia, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Together, these countries account for just 14 percent

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