Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters
Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters
Kamala Thiagarajan
Opinion

Opinion

Kamala Thiagarajan

How the rich world’s vaccine nationalism will cost everyone in the end

  • Just as travel bans have failed to keep Covid-19 variants out of countries, vaccine nationalism will fail too
  • The longer that the wider world remains unvaccinated, the more variants are going to spread. Some may not be as responsive to current vaccines

Kamala Thiagarajan
Kamala Thiagarajan

Updated: 9:15am, 2 Jun, 2021

Why you can trust SCMP
Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters
Ethiopian Airlines staff unload AstraZeneca vaccines from a cargo plane at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 7. As rich countries hoard vaccines, the Covax programme has only distributed 77 million doses to some of the world’s poorest people so far. Photo: Reuters
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Kamala Thiagarajan

Kamala Thiagarajan

Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, southern India. She reports on human interest, health, development, gender issues and has been published in the New York Times, BBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, NPR’s Goats & Soda and more.