Rich countries getting new COVID vaccine before poorer ones

By MARIA CHENG and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL
Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) — The company behind a COVID-19 vaccine touted as a key tool for the developing world will miss a target for giving doses to the U.N.-backed effort to deliver shots to poorer countries. COVAX planned to make available 250 million doses from Novavax by March. But the U.N. agency in charge of deliveries says the first shipments likely won’t be made until April or May. Still, tens of millions of doses of the vaccine have already gone to rich countries including Australia and the Netherlands. The delay is the latest setback for COVAX, which has been repeatedly hit by supply problems and has missed numerous targets to share doses.