When you’re an Arab, over 75 years old or prone to cardiovascular disease and impatient to be immune to Covid-19, it is better to live in a Gulf city-state than Syrian or Yemeni province. The state of play of the coronavirus vaccination campaign in the various countries of the Middle East is a direct result of their level of development and political stability.
Between the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a federation full of petrodollars, which plans to have inoculated a vaccine to half of its 10 million inhabitants by the end of March, and Syria, a state wiped out by ten years of civil war, which is not even sure to have received the slightest dose on that date, the chasm is yawning.
“In the Middle East, the richer we are, the earlier we are vaccinated, observes Shadi Saleh, director of the Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut, who distinguishes three types of countries. In the lead, we find the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula, which were proactive, ordered very quickly, to be delivered in large quantities. Then there are the states with limited resources, such as Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, which have received small amounts of vaccines, often thanks to foreign aid, and are waiting for their share of Covax. [le mécanisme de distribution du vaccin de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) destiné aux pays pauvres]. And finally, there are the countries in crisis, like Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine, where the vaccination campaign has not even started yet. “
A daring bet
On the Arabian shore of the Gulf, the round of anti-Covid bites began in the second half of December, at the same time as the major Western countries. The prize for speed goes to the United Arab Emirates, which reached, Sunday, February 14, the ratio of 51 doses administered per 100 inhabitants, the second best result worldwide, behind Israel (74) and far ahead of the United States. United (16). This performance is explained by the relatively small size of the Emirati population, its concentration in two large cities – Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which are crisscrossed with vaccination centers, but also by a daring bet.
Although a very close ally of the United States, the petromonarchy, which has recorded 1,027 deaths from Covid-19, has chosen the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, in which its inhabitants participated in the month of July. Less expensive than the American-German Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, it is also less demanding from a logistical point of view. It can be stored in a classic refrigerator, between 2 and 8 ° C, while its competitor must be stored in super-freezers, at – 70 ° C. At Christmas, while it still aroused some skepticism in the West, the UAE began to inject the Chinese product into its population, convinced of its perfect effectiveness.
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