A few days ago, Forbes magazine reported that one billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, but mostly in wealthy nations. This was confirmed by the Associated Press, which reported that 87% of the doses had been administered in developed countries, with one in four people having received the jab in comparison to one in more than 500 in developing countries.

These statistics paint a debilitating picture of vaccine nationalism, a phenomenon that describes the practice of governments in wealthy countries scrambling to sign deals with pharmaceutical companies directly, to secure vaccines for their own populations – limiting the stock available for others...