No one is safe, until everyone is safe – Strategies and challenges to achieve a global vaccine strategy

COVID-19 is a global challenge that can therefore only be solved globally. While the debate in the European Union has focused heavily on local and regional vaccine distribution, an essential key in winning the fight against the pandemic has been overlooked: we need a global vaccination strategy and global equitable access to a vaccine. At the moment the world is breaking up into two vaccination blocks: In a block of industrialized countries, where a small part of the world population has secured the majority of the vaccine. In addition, these governments have started massive investment programs to support the local economy and to cushion the social and economic damages caused. The other block, which includes countries of the global south, where insufficient vaccination doses are available and where already fragile health systems are weakened. The "Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access" Initiative (COVAX) set up by the WHO is intended to ensure that countries with low or middle incomes still receive vaccines. This is an important initiative, but it is working very slow. At the G7 meeting in February, additional funds were once again pledged for COVAX, also from the EU and Germany. Nonetheless, there remains a funding gap of $22 billion.