The price of making vaccines too expensive

Days after grabbing headlines with its Covid-19 vaccine, AstraZeneca is facing hard questions about its data. — AP

THE world is unequal enough and the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to make things more unequal still. Poorer countries have had to take on debt they will struggle to pay back.

Their more fragile health care systems and crowded cities forced them into stricter and more economically harmful lockdowns, and poverty rates have risen dramatically.