Paris, France.
About fifty countries have already started their vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus, just one year after the first alert issued by the Chinese authorities to the World Health Organization (WHO).
China in the lead
China was the first country to start a vaccination campaign in the summer for those most at risk (employees and students going abroad, carers, etc.).
More than five million doses of Chinese experimental vaccines have been injected into the country, which officially approved one developed by Sinopharm on Thursday.
Russia followed on December 5, when it began vaccinating at-risk workers with Sputnik V, the vaccine developed by the Russian National Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology Gamaleya.
That vaccine was approved by Belarus and Argentina, which began the vaccination campaign on Tuesday. Algeria will follow in January.
Great Britain, first in the West
The United Kingdom was in turn the first Western country to authorize the vaccine developed by the US-Germany Pfizer-BioNTech alliance. His immunization campaign began on December 8 and more than 800,000 people have already received the first of two doses of vaccine, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The country was also the first to approve the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine on Wednesday, which will be injected into the British on January 4th.
In the West, Canada and the United States followed on December 14th. Then Switzerland on the 23rd and Serbia on the 24th, almost the entire European Union on Sunday, Norway on Sunday and Iceland on Tuesday, all with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The United States and Canada were also the first two countries to authorize the vaccine from the American laboratory Moderna.
More than 2.8 million Americans have already received a dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the EU, Germany is the country that has vaccinated the most so far, with over 130,000 doses in five days.
Israel’s sprint
In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates was the first to launch its Chinese dose campaign Sinopharm on December 14 in Abu Dhabi, the capital. Also in the Emirates, Dubai began immunization on December 23 with doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.
Saudi Arabia and Bahrain started their campaign on December 17, Israel on December 19, Qatar on December 23, Kuwait on December 24. Oman will start its campaign on Sunday. All these countries initially chose Pfizer-BioNTech.
Israel, which has pledged to take a real sprint to immunize a quarter of its population in a month, has already injected more than 800,000 doses, Bahrain more than 60,000 and Oman more than 3,000, according to official figures.
In Latin America, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica began their campaign on December 24, with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
In Asia, Singapore began vaccination on Wednesday with the same product. The other countries on the continent do not seem to be in the same chase: India, Japan and Taiwan plan to start their campaigns in the first quarter, the Philippines and Pakistan will wait for the second, and Afghanistan and Thailand in mid-2021.
In sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, there are no vaccination plans yet. Guinea Conakry, which began injecting the first 60 doses of Sputnik V on Wednesday before deciding whether or not to launch its campaign, is emerging as a pioneer on its continent.