US helping India make vax: Biden

America to send 500 mn Pfizer doses to nations not having vax from this month

Washington, Aug. 4:

The US is trying to provide for countries like India the capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines themselves, President Joe Biden has said, as he highlighted the efforts of democratic nations to help the world stem the surge of the pandemic. With a need for several billion doses around the world, the US was committed to providing half a billion (50 crores) shots, Biden said during a press conference at White House on Tuesday.

“We have committed to over a half a billion doses. And we’re trying to provide for more and provide for the capacity of countries like India to be able to produce the vaccine themselves. And we’re helping them do that. That’s what we’re doing now,” he said in response to a question. “And we’re trying to…by the way, it’s free. We’re not charging anybody anything. And we’re trying to do as much as we possibly can,” he added.

In this fight against Covid-19, Biden asserted, the United States was committed to become the “arsenal of vaccines”, the manner in which it was the arsenal of democracy during World War II.

“We are backing up that commitment. We have contributed more than any other nation to COVAX as a collective global effort to deliver Covid-19 vaccines across the world. We have supported manufacturing efforts abroad through our partnerships with Japan, India, Australia — known as the Quad,” he said.

Biden said that during his trip to Europe in June, he had announced that the US would purchase a ground-breaking 500 million doses of Pfizer and donate to nearly a hundred lowand middle-income countries that don’t have the vaccine. Those doses will start to ship at the end of this month, he said.

“We also announced that we would donate 80 million doses of our vaccine to supply the world, which has already begun,” Biden said.

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