tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Nat Commun
. 2025 Oct 13;16(1):9059.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63950-w. Global disparities in the introduction, scale-up, and effectiveness evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines
Martina Pesce[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Daniel R Feikin[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Melissa M Higdon[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Katherine L O'Brien[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Minal K Patel[SUP] 2 4 [/SUP], Analía Rearte[SUP] 5 6 [/SUP], Carla Vizzotti[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Annelies Wilder-Smith[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Edward P K Parker[SUP] 7 8 [/SUP]
Affiliations
The global response to COVID-19 saw the most rapid and extensive vaccination rollout in history. Yet there were large disparities in the introduction, scale-up, and evaluation of programmes. To systematically quantify these disparities, we generate linkages across public datasets containing country- and territory-level income data, COVID-19 vaccination rates, and COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE). Our results show that, compared with high-income countries, lower-income countries introduced vaccines later, were less likely to achieve key coverage milestones, and were slower to do so where these milestones were achieved. The literature on primary series COVID-19 VE has been dominated by studies of mRNA vaccines from high-income countries, with data for other vaccines and lower-income countries appearing later and in substantially lower quantities. For vaccines with available VE data across multiple income settings (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, and ChAdOx1-S), our meta-regression highlights robust protection against severe COVID-19, with no significant differences in primary series VE according to country-level income status during the Delta and Omicron periods. Our findings demonstrate the strong protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines across diverse populations. Nonetheless, our results quantify the stark disparities that pervaded each stage of COVID-19 vaccine implementation, and highlight evidence gaps related to products and platforms being used across much of the globe.
. 2025 Oct 13;16(1):9059.
doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63950-w. Global disparities in the introduction, scale-up, and effectiveness evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines
Martina Pesce[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Daniel R Feikin[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Melissa M Higdon[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Katherine L O'Brien[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Minal K Patel[SUP] 2 4 [/SUP], Analía Rearte[SUP] 5 6 [/SUP], Carla Vizzotti[SUP] 6 [/SUP], Annelies Wilder-Smith[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Edward P K Parker[SUP] 7 8 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 41083450
- DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63950-w
The global response to COVID-19 saw the most rapid and extensive vaccination rollout in history. Yet there were large disparities in the introduction, scale-up, and evaluation of programmes. To systematically quantify these disparities, we generate linkages across public datasets containing country- and territory-level income data, COVID-19 vaccination rates, and COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE). Our results show that, compared with high-income countries, lower-income countries introduced vaccines later, were less likely to achieve key coverage milestones, and were slower to do so where these milestones were achieved. The literature on primary series COVID-19 VE has been dominated by studies of mRNA vaccines from high-income countries, with data for other vaccines and lower-income countries appearing later and in substantially lower quantities. For vaccines with available VE data across multiple income settings (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, and ChAdOx1-S), our meta-regression highlights robust protection against severe COVID-19, with no significant differences in primary series VE according to country-level income status during the Delta and Omicron periods. Our findings demonstrate the strong protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines across diverse populations. Nonetheless, our results quantify the stark disparities that pervaded each stage of COVID-19 vaccine implementation, and highlight evidence gaps related to products and platforms being used across much of the globe.