text: Vaccines for COVID 19 Where do we stand in 2021 As of July 2021 over 3 billion doses of a COVID 19 vaccines have been administered globally and there are now 19 COVID 19 vaccines approved for use in at least one country Several of these have been shown to be highly effective both in clinical trials and real world observational studies some of which have included special populations of interest A small number of countries have approved a COVID 19 vaccine for use in adolescents or children These are laudable achievements but the global vaccination effort has been challenged by inequitable distribution of vaccines predominantly to high income countries with only 0 9 of people in low income countries having received at least one dose of a COVID 19 vaccine Addressing this inequity is of critical importance and will result in better control of SARS CoV 2 globally Other challenges include the reduced protection from COVID 19 vaccines against some strains of SARS CoV 2 necessitating the development of variant specific vaccines and uncertainties around the duration of protection from vaccine induced immunity 