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How close are we to reaching WHO’s goal of 40% vaccination coverage worldwide by end-December?

Question: The World Health Organization is aiming to have at least 40% of the population in all countries fully vaccinated by the end of the year.  How close/far are we from meeting that goal?  

Answer: On October 7th, WHO launched its Strategy to Achieve Global Covid-19 Vaccination by mid-2022. The strategy calls for 40% vaccination coverage (e.g. 40% of the population fully vaccinated) in all countries by end-December 2021 and 70% coverage in all countries by mid-June 2022.  We are on track to achieve at least 40% global population vaccination coverage by the end of the year, but many countries (predominantly low-income ones) remain far from reaching the target. According to OurWorldInData, as of October 25th:

  • 37% of the world’s population had been fully vaccinated.  
  • 46% of all countries had achieved at least 40% vaccination coverage (95 out of 205 countries with vaccination data).
    • 13% of all countries had achieved at least 70% vaccination coverage (27 of 205 countries).
    • All major regions of the world except Africa had achieved at least 40% vaccination coverage; Africa has only reached 5.5% vaccination coverage.
  • 53% of all countries had NOT achieved at least 40% vaccination coverage (110 out of 205 countries) (Figure 1)
    • Countries that had not yet reached the end-December target are predominantly low- and lower-middle income countries.
    • The pace of vaccination has been slowest in low-income countries. (Figure 2).  
    • Related, WHO suggests that another $8 billion USD is needed to fill urgent programmatic gaps in low and lower-middle income countries (note: total financing for low and lower-middle income countries is estimated to be $55 billion, but much of that is already secured).
    • In case you’re interested, the US didn’t reach the 40% coverage target until end-May 2021 (~6 months since vaccinations began in the country). 

Figure 1. Countries that have not yet reached 40% vaccination coverage (map made by me using data from OurWorldInData)


Figure 2. Vaccine doses administered per 100 people by country income status (from OurWorldInData)