Global study highlights wide disparity in COVID-19 vaccination among older adults
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Although roughly 77% of older adults globally have been vaccinated against COVID-19, researchers found wide disparities in vaccination rates based on income levels.
According to the findings, 90% of older adults in high-income nations have been vaccinated compared with roughly one-third in low-income nations.
In 2022, WHO set a goal of vaccinating 100% of populations at increased risk for SARS-CoV-2, and although more wealthy countries have managed to approach that goal, the study published in MMWR suggests the rest of the world lags behind.
Among these priority populations is older adults, who have made up about 80% of COVID-19-related deaths since the start of the pandemic in January 2020.
“Because of limitations in access to vaccines in many low- and middle-income countries and limited capacity to rapidly roll out COVID-19 vaccines, middle- and low-income countries are taking longer to reach the recommended ranges for primary series and booster dose coverage as recommended by WHO and national health authorities,” the researchers wrote in the study.
They performed a comparative analysis of COVID-19 deaths and mortality during 2020 and 2021 using publicly available WHO data from three sources: daily country-specific number or reported cases and deaths; weekly country-specific age, sex and health care worker status of disaggregated cases and deaths; and WHO-modeled COVID-19 excess mortality estimates.
The researchers also analyzed WHO’s most recent COVID-19 vaccine coverage to examine age-specific mortality and vaccination rollout among adults aged 60 years or older in each country, and categorized them using World Bank national income status.
The analyses revealed that, among 73% of low-income countries and 31% of low- and middle-income countries, estimated mortality in each country exceeded reported COVID-19 associated deaths by 10-fold. In comparison, this difference was “less than twofold” in most of the high-income nations.
No country has achieved WHO’s 100% vaccination goal, according to the researchers, with overall vaccine coverage ranging from a low of 21% in low-income countries to a high of 74% in high-income countries. The only nations to achieve WHO’s goal of vaccination 70% overall populations have been high-income countries.
Among older adults, vaccine coverage ranged from 33% in low-income countries to 90% in high-income countries.
“Because vaccination rates among older adult populations remain below the recommended global vaccination target of 100%, efforts are needed to understand and address the reasons that target populations are not reached by current vaccination programs,” the researchers wrote.
In November, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, MSc, said that although two-thirds of the global population had been vaccinated, “There are still wide disparities in vaccination rates.”
These concerns over COVID-19 vaccine equity and availability have been apparent since the early months of their availability.
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