More than 4.58 billion people worldwide have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, equal to about 59.7 percent of the world population. This map shows the stark gap between vaccination programs in different countries.

The data is compiled from government sources by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. A vaccinated person refers to someone who has received at least one dose of a vaccine, and a fully vaccinated person has received either a single-dose vaccine or both doses of a two-dose vaccine, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna shots.

Vaccine doses remain relatively scarce globally. But concerns around waning immunity have prompted many countries, including the United States and Israel, to start administering additional doses. Additional doses include booster doses given to fully vaccinated individuals when the protection from the original shots has begun to decline, as well as extra shots given to people, such as the immunocompromised, who did not have a strong immune response from their initial doses. More than 518.1 million additional doses have been administered worldwide, with many more countries expected to start administering them soon.

Less wealthy countries are relying on a vaccine-sharing arrangement called Covax, which originally aimed to provide two billion doses by the end of 2021 but repeatedly cut its forecasts because of production problems, export bans and vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations. This has led to a striking divide between regions of the world. Africa has the slowest vaccination rate of any continent, with just 13.3 percent of the population receiving at least one dose of a vaccine.

Most of the vaccines currently in use require two doses for a patient to be fully vaccinated. In February 2021, the Food and Drug Administration authorized a one-shot vaccine by pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson for emergency use in the United States.

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Source: nytimes