THERE WAS a time when some thought poor countries might escape the worst of the pandemic—owing to population density, demographics or climate. That has proved not to be the case. Indeed, judging by “excess deaths”, a measure of the number of people who die from any cause in a given period compared with the historical average, poor countries have often fared worse than rich ones. Peru, now in the throes of a second wave, has logged more than 4,000 excess deaths per 1m people since the pandemic began, more than twice the rate of America, Britain or Italy. If India’s covid crisis yields a similar excess-death toll, it would mean an almost unfathomable 5.6m dead.

Vaccination efforts in poorer parts of the world, meanwhile, are sputtering. In Africa, just 1% of people have received at least one dose of a vaccine; in Asia 4.4% have had a jab. In Europe and America, meanwhile, the shares are 22% and 44%, respectively, according to Our World in Data, a project run by researchers at the University of Oxford. Rich countries have focused on vaccinating their own populations, leaving poorer ones scrambling to procure covid-19 vaccines or develop their own.

Donations are failing to fill the void. COVAX, a global vaccine-sharing scheme funded by rich countries mainly in Europe and America, has donated 49m doses to 120 countries, according to Airfinity, a London-based analytics firm. China has doled out 13.4m doses to 45 different countries, with the largest quantities going to Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines. India, home to the Serum Institute, the world's biggest vaccine-maker, has donated 10.5m, mainly to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan, which roughly equals the 10m doses India has itself received from COVAX. Altogether, the world has given away 73.4m doses, enough to administer one shot to only 1% of the world’s population. On April 26th the White House said the United States would share up to 60m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with the rest of the world, but so far only 10m doses have been produced.

More are on their way, but not nearly fast enough. By mid-2021 COVAX expects to ship 238m doses, enough to offer one jab to 3% of the global population. A shortage of vaccines is the biggest problem. Yields can be unpredictable, and scaling up production difficult. Supplies of raw materials are also tight. At the same time, countries have scrambled to secure their own citizens first. If the WHO approves jabs by Sinovac and Sinopharm of China in the coming days, increasing the range of vaccines COVAX can buy, that should help. On May 3rd Moderna said it would supply 34m doses of its covid-19 vaccine to COVAX. Money is another problem. By April 16th, total contributions to COVAX amounted to just $6.6bn. Gordon Brown, a former prime minister of Britain, has called for rich countries to raise $60bn to fight the pandemic in poorer countries ahead of the G7 leaders’ summit in June.

There is a strong moral case for vaccinating the world’s poor. But it is also in rich countries’ own interest. More infections, regardless of where they occur, mean more opportunities for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to mutate, which might, in the worst case, leave the vaccinated vulnerable once again. For rich and poor alike, that is an outcome to avoid at almost any cost.