The unfinished business of vaccine equity

The pandemic exposed a fault line that was always there: the protection of a population depends heavily on where it lives. Years on, the gap has narrowed, but the structures that produced it have not been rebuilt.

Vaccine manufacturing remains concentrated in a small number of countries. Procurement still favours those who can pay, or wait. The result is a world where preparedness is uneven, and the next crisis could repeat the last.

Equity is not charity. A pathogen does not respect borders, and a protection gap anywhere is a vulnerability everywhere. The case for shared capacity is practical as much as moral.

The question now is whether the political attention of a crisis can survive into the quieter work of prevention. History suggests it rarely does, until the next emergency reminds us why it should.