The race to get everyone vaccinated has just begun with UK, USA & Canada issuing EUA for the Pfizer- BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Data maintained by the Duke University indicates that more than 50% of the confirmed purchases are by High-Income countries. The vaccination in India could begin soon with three different vaccine candidates having applied for EUA. A second wave of COVID-19 infection is sweeping across the USA with over 2 lakh cases being reported daily. Meanwhile, the second wave experienced in the major European countries appears to have subsided with fewer numbers being reported barring Germany. Meanwhile, based on the earlier trends and timelines, it is estimated that the second wave of COVID-19 infection could soon hit countries like India & Brazil, which are among the countries with several COVID-19 cases during the first wave. The World Health Organization (WHO), and governments across the world have been advocating the use of masks, social distancing, sanitizing, etc. to contain the spread of COVID-19. While these measures are in place, countries across the world have been waiting for a vaccine with bated breath. The expectation is that a vaccine could inoculate the population from COVID-19. The Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), emphasizes the benefits of getting a COVID-19 vaccine which would protect individuals against the infection and help contain the pandemic. Multiple vaccine candidates are being developed world-wide and are at different stages of development process. As per WHO’s latest Draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines, 52 candidate vaccines are in clinical evaluation of which at least 13 are in phase-3. An update on the New York Times states that 7 vaccines are approved and are in the stage of early/limited used or approved for full use. United Kingdom has begun its vaccination drive with the first-person receiving the vaccine developed by Pfizer last week. The United States Food & Drug Administration (US FDA) also issued the first emergency use authorization (EUA) for the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech. It is expected that the inoculation will begin in a day or two in the USA. Even the Indian drug regulator has sought more data & information from three different vaccine candidates that have applied for EUA. However, the vaccine strategy followed by the countries around the world is not uniform. Few of the richer countries have been proactive in sourcing vaccines while many other poor & middle-income countries are lagging behind. Access to vaccines, distribution infrastructure, healthcare infrastructure, economic status etc. are few of the factors that influence the approach of these countries. High income countries have already reserved more than half of the confirmed purchase of Vaccine doses The imbalance among the countries in procuring the COVID-19 vaccine is evident from the consolidated information provided by Launch & Scale Speedometer, an initiative of Duke University’s Global Health Innovation Center. In a recent press release, they have pointed out that the low-income countries would have access to fewer vaccine doses as a majority of the vaccine doses to be made available are already reserved by the rich countries. Vaccines generally take multiple years to develop with extensive trials being undertaken to ensure safety and desired outcomes. However, in the context of the global pandemic, many of the vaccine candidates have been fast-tracked and as highlighted earlier, few of them are in the final stages to be rolled out while few others have been given EUA. However, the major challenge is to manufacture enough doses to meet the global demand. The current manufacturing capacity is limited and there is a race among the countries to gain first access to the vaccine doses being manufactured. Launch & Scale Speedometer reports that various countries have already finalized contracts to the tune of nearly 7.2 billion doses even though none of the vaccines are yet approved for public use except for EUA in a few countries. There are another 2.4 billion doses that are under negotiation. High income countries have reserved a major chunk of these vaccine doses As per the latest information available as of 11 December 2020, High-income countries have made transactions for nearly 3.91 billion doses. Meanwhile, Lower Middle-income countries and Upper Middle-income countries have reserved 1.6 billion and around 1 billion doses respectively. None of the low-income countries have got into any contracts for at least the initial doses expected to be manufactured.