Doses waiting for administration would be 2.2 billion. Among them, it is difficult to know how many are out of date.
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As of March 10, the number of doses of Vaccines against Cvid-19 stored around the world amounted to more than 2.2 billion, based on the calculations of the Airfinity Scientific Data Analysis Corporation. Only China has 13% of this total, followed by Bangladesh and Indonesia. In low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda …) or lower middle income (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria, Egypt), stocks drastically increased from October 2021, mainly through deliveries of COVAX, the international program to provide vaccines into developing countries, or last minute bilateral donations.
In Africa, the stock of vaccines increased from 80 million doses before October to more than 300 million today. In the end, it is 40% of the doses received by this continent which have not yet been administered. Worse: In the 27 low-income countries, the number of doses in stock now surpasses the number of doses administered (118 million doses stored for 94 million doses administered).
As to how many of these doses are already out of date or will soon be, difficult to say. “Unfortunately, we do not know the shelf life of the doses when given”, explains Sarah Harper, Airfinity. Only indication: according to the World Health Organization, more than two-thirds of the doses given last year had a remaining lifetime of less than three months. Reported to the billion doses distributed by Covax, this means that about 660 million doses have been received, with a very short time to organize vaccination campaigns. On this billion doses, 35% have not been administered, says Airfinity.