The World Health Organisation-backed COVAX programme has released details of the numbers of COVID vaccine doses it aims to provide to participating countries by the end of May.

It plans to deliver 237 million of the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot to 142 nations over the next three months as it steps up the rollout – with COVAX seen as the “only true global solution to the pandemic”.

The initiative, also supported by the GAVI vaccine alliance, was created to ensure access to jabs for low and middle-income countries, and it aims to have two billion doses available by the end of the year.

Shots will be free for the 92 poorest countries, including Ghana which started its COVID-19 vaccine drive this week, after receiving 600,000 shots.

The doses will have a maximum price of $3 (£2.15) each and countries will begin inoculating mainly frontline healthcare workers and the most vulnerable people, months after wealthier nations, like the UK and US, began their rollouts.

The new figures show Singapore, which is seen as one of the countries that has fared comparatively well during the pandemic, will receive 244,800 doses by the end of May.

South Korea – another nation with relatively low numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths – will get 2,102,400 doses, and there are 211,200 doses for New Zealand, which has also kept its COVID figures down.

Canada will receive 1,624,800 shots, with 1,704,000 bound for North Korea, despite the secretive state insisting it is virus-free.

Afghanistan is to receive 2,580,000 doses, while there will be 10,908,000 for Bangladesh, 9,122,400 for Brazil – one of worst-hit countries in the pandemic, 5,928,000 for the Democratic Republic of Congo, 7,620,000 for Ethiopia, and 4,584,000 for the Philippines.

Other countries with millions in allocations include Indonesia with 11,704,800, and Mexico – another very badly-hit nation – with 5,532,000, while Nigeria will receive 13,656,000 and Pakistan will get the most – 14,640,000.

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Some countries have larger populations so they will receive more doses.

GAVI chief executive Dr Seth Berkley said COVAX is “the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the only effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth”.

He added: “For lower-income funded nations, who would otherwise be unable to afford these vaccines, as well as a number of higher-income self-financing countries that have no bilateral deals with manufacturers, COVAX is quite literally a lifeline and the only viable way in which their citizens will get access to COVID-19 vaccines.

“For the wealthiest self-financing countries, some of which may also be negotiating bilateral deals with vaccine manufacturers, it serves as an invaluable insurance policy to protect their citizens, both directly and indirectly.”

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