Push to bring coronavirus vaccines to the poor faces trouble

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FILE - In this Monday, May 25, 2020 file photo, a vile of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate on a shelf during testing at the Chula Vaccine Research Center, run by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Refrigeration, cargo planes, and, above all, money: All risk being in short supply for the international initiative to get coronavirus vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

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LONDON (AP) — An ambitious international project to deliver coronavirus vaccines to the world’s poorest people is facing potential shortages of money, cargo planes, refrigeration and vaccines themselves. It is also running into skepticism even from some of those it’s intended to help most. In one of the biggest obstacles, rich countries have locked up most of the world’s potential vaccine supply through 2021, and the U.S. and others have refused to join the project, called Covax. Alicia Yamin, a global health expert at Harvard University, said she fears the “window is closing” for Covax to prove workable. She says that poor countries “probably will not get vaccinated until 2022 or 2023.”