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BEIJING. – While China has been accused of exercising “vaccine diplomacy” for its willingness to share its vaccines with the poorest nations, the US and the West have engaged in an open war against the equitable distribution of the vaccine worldwide.

Nearly six of 10 of all vaccine doses administered have taken place in richer countries that represent just 16 percent of the global population. African countries, which possess 17 percent of the global population, have only administered two percent of all doses.

The US, UK and European Union nations have partnered with for-profit drug companies to essentially horde the global vaccine supply. Last month, it was estimated that the US will have nearly 500 million more Covid-19 vaccine doses than necessary to inoculate its population.

Vaccine inequality is no accident. Private companies such as Pfizer hesitate to offer information and supplies to poorer nations because doing so does not serve their bottom line. The US and its closest European allies have made no formal commitment to distributing extra doses of the vaccine because these countries have a track record of placing their own “national interests” over the well-being of humanity.

The Biden administration has made it clear on several occasions that most of its hoarded vaccine stockpiles will not be made available to the world until the US population is fully vaccinated.

Vaccine warfare is counterproductive. Vaccine warfare ensures that the most vulnerable among us experience the most harm from the continued spread of Covid-19. But the longer the virus spreads, the more it mutates in ways that are impossible to predict.

These mutations are likely to disrupt economies and human life everywhere. No one country is immune to a pandemic in an increasingly globalised and interconnected world. – CGTN.