Coronavirus | 51 million given COVID-19 jabs worldwide

Just 11 of the 61 nations who have started vaccinating account for 90% of the doses given

A senior citizen receives COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Le Cannet, in France. File

More than 51 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been given around the world, according to an AFP count on Wednesday.

Quarter of Israelis

Israel leads the vaccination race by far in terms of the percentage of population.

More than a quarter of its citizens have had shots, with 2.43 million vaccines given.

More than one in 20 have already received the second dose. The country secured a huge stock of

Pfizer jabs partly by pledging to share impact data quickly with the company.

One privacy specialist described the rollout as "the biggest experiment on humans in the 21st century".

Globally, 51,285,801 doses have been given in at least 61 countries or territories.

Unequal access

The rich countries of Europe, North America, the Gulf and China are hogging most of the vaccines so far.

Just 11 of the 61 nations who have started vaccinating account for 90% of the doses given.

Major Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have launched campaigns but at a slower pace than other regions.

In Africa only the Seychelles has begun a campaign, while Guinea is running a pilot programme involving a few dozen people.

The World Health Organization hopes to deliver the first vaccines through the Covax scheme to share out shots more fairly by the end of the month or early February.

The U.S. leads in terms of sheer volume of shots , with 15.7 million doses given to 4.1% its population. China has given 15 million doses.

The U.K. comes in third -- and first in Europe -- with 4.7 million doses covering 6.3% of the population.

Italy and Germany have each administered 1.2 million doses to 1.4% of Germans and 2% of Italians. France has given vaccines to 585,662 people or 0.9 per cent of the population.

More than than six million doses have been given across the EU, with Denmark leading the way with 3 % of its people getting a first jab, ahead of Malta (2.9%), and Slovenia (2.1%).

Seven vaccines

There are currently seven vaccines circulating around the world, all designed to be given in two doses.

The vaccines developed by Pfizer -BioNTech (U.S.-German) and Moderna (U.S.) are dominant in North America, Europe, Israel and the Gulf.

Britain's AstraZeneca-Oxford is used in much of the U.K. and India, with the latter also using a vaccine produced by its pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech .

Listen: Explaining India's Vaccine Diplomacy, in the neighbourhood and beyond | The Hindu In Focus Podcast

Russia's Sputnik V vaccine has been rolled out in Russia, Argentina, Belarus and Serbia.

China's Sinopharm jabs are being administered in China, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, the Seychelles and Jordan, while Indonesia and Turkey are using China's Sinovac vaccine.

China's Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines and Russia's Sputnik V jab have yet to be fully approved by either Beijing or Moscow's health authorities.