The Wealth of Nations during the Pandemic: The Vaccine Equity

Abstract

Aggressive global dissemination of the coronavirus indicated the urgency of the development of vaccines at an unprecedented rate and scale. The limited production and short supply of vaccines which were reserved mostly for the advanced economies were the greatest problems of 2021. For emerging economies, this timeline will stretch to late 2022 or early 2023. As a part of systematic immunization programs, the development, licensing, and implementation of the vaccines against the Covid-19 virus started to address health service inequalities among countries. While on one hand vaccination is regarded to be one of the most cost-effective interventions in public health during the pandemic, on the other hand, the introduction and sustainable supply of vaccines needed to be supported and ensured by decision-makers and governments. Due to the weak economic conditions of developing countries, they could not provide enough financial and health support to their citizens during this period. However, since the global GDP loss from not inoculating all countries is higher than the cost of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally, there has been a growing demand to international cooperation to have global vaccination without omitting any countries. This paper focuses on the economic and social costs and benefits of vaccinations during the Covid-19 pandemic period in advanced, middle, and low-income countries. Accordingly, macroeconomic and social impacts of vaccination will be discussed and some policy suggestions will be put forth to get more benefits from the vaccination both for economic and health outcomes.