Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker (Nos of Countries using Vaccine)

17 May 2021

 

Various countries have approved 15 vaccines so far for emergency use. About 60 of other brands are still in various development stage. Out of the 15 vaccines approved for use,  WHO, The World Health Organization has only approved 6 of them. This is as shown in the following table. 

 

Vaccine Approvals 

It is not mandatory for country to use vaccines approved by WHO. Individual country has own list and approval guidelines. 

The number of countries that have approved the use of various brands of vaccine are shown in this 3D Pie Chart. 

 

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https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

This 3D Pie chart shows that the 4 US vaccine manufacturers  have the approval from most countries.  One of the reason for the bigger share must be because their vaccines have better efficacy.

 

Market Rumours

There are lots of rumours in the market about which vaccine is better. Some rumours claimed that the Chinese or Indian vaccines are the best. They said the mRNA vaccines offered by Pfizer and Moderna are not the traditional type. Hence, not quite safe. There are also claims that mRNA vaccines have more severe side effects.

Some even claimed Sinovac and Sinopharm have better protection against death and hospitalization. This is despite they have lower efficacy.  

 

As most claims did not have data to back them up.   Also there is no World standard for the measurement, this article will not discuss them.  

 

Presently, there is only one acceptable measurement. That is the the measurement of efficacy for the vaccine.

What Exactly is Efficacy?

Efficacy is a measurement that tells how well the vaccine can reduce a disease infection.  It is worked out by comparing the infection rate or attack rate of some 30,000 recipients.  These recipients are divided into 2 groups,  one vaccinated and the other unvaccinated.  They worked  and lived in a community under a controlled environment.  Their conditions were monitored and their blood samples taken regularly to measure the virus attacks.   

There are also 2 other terms that are often mentioned. These 2 terms are effectiveness & efficiency of the vaccine. Presently, there is no such acceptable measurement standards available.

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The Efficacy of Various Brands of Vaccine

The Economist has a very good chart showing the efficacy of various brands.     This chart shows that Sinovac's efficacy is too close to WHO's 50% threshold for listing of vaccines for emergency use.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/04/15/in-clinical-and-real-world-trials-chinas-sinovac-underperforms#

Find out which Country use what vaccine most

The Our-World-in-Data has this chart that one can check what countries use what type of vaccine and how much of it.  The chart is reproduced here

Translate the chart into numbers,  one will get the following tables

Should One Wait for Better Vaccine?

Every country is now chasing after available vaccines.  As a result,  vaccine is in very short supply. The advice generally is to take whatever vaccine available. This is because the vaccine of choice might never come.

There were fierce debates among Scientists whether one can switch to other brands. There were no decision as there was not enough data to back up the claim.  Nonetheless,  some recipients in some countries took different brands by mistakes.  There were no adverse reports lodged. It would appear likely that switching to other brands might be a possibility.

https://tinyurl.com/3uwpn5wa