At a private hospital in Burundi's capital, emergency specialist Emmanuel Kubwayo is worried for the first time since the coronavirus started spreading around the world last year.

Kubwayo initially shared the government's view that the small central African country did not need COVID-19 vaccines because it had so few cases. But as deaths and infections surge across Africa, he has changed his mind.

Along with Eritrea, Tanzania, and North Korea, Burundi is one of a handful of nations that have not started vaccinations, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), potentially threatening global efforts to end the pandemic.

"It's time to let people who want, and can, to get vaccinated," said Kubwayo, 53, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

So far, only about 18 million people in Africa, a continent of 1.3 billion, have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 due largely to vaccine shortages, as well as widespread hesitancy.

But infections and deaths have jumped in recent weeks as more contagious variants take hold, shining a spotlight on the world's so-called vaccine deserts — places that are either unable or unwilling to undertake mass inoculation.

As rich countries open up and start vaccinating less vulnerable younger people, poor countries are struggling to secure vaccines. In Africa and elsewhere, such as Haiti, health authorities have barely begun mass roll-outs.

Worldwide, wealthy nations have administered about half of total COVID-19 vaccine doses, compared with just 0.4% in low-income countries, WHO figures from last month show, revealing glaring vaccine inequality.

The gap could widen still further as some governments order millions of booster doses to tackle a spike in cases linked to the highly contagious Delta variant, before others have received supplies for health workers and other high-risk groups.

Read the full article about vaccine deserts by Nita Bhalla and Anastasia Moloney at Global Citizen.