The Stubborn Persistence of Vaccine Inequity

PUBLISHED In Foreign affairs | november 2, 2021

The Stubborn Persistence of Vaccine Inequity

By darren walker

In the forests of Jambi Province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, more than half the indigenous Orang Rimba community lacks government-issued identification cards. Until mid-August, that meant its members could not receive COVID-19 vaccines, since the government required anyone seeking a dose to have a state-issued ID number. Even now that the rule has been changed, many Orang Rimba have not had a chance to get a shot, because like most indigenous people in Indonesia, they live in a remote area, hours away from the nearest vaccination site.

Read the full op-ed in Foreign Affairs.