US to work with Covax for supply of vaccines

The US will work with the Who-backed Covax facility and other partners for the equitable distribution of some 80 million Covid-19 vaccines from its stockpiles in line with scientific and public health data from around the world, President Joe Biden has said.

The move comes at a time when Covax, which signed advance agreements to procure hundreds of millions of doses for low-income countries, has been floundering because of a shortfall in supplies from the Serum Institute of India (SII) after India curtailed exports from March to cope with a devastating second wave of infections.

People familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity that Covax’s supply shortfall will be 140 million doses by the end of May, and if supplies from SII continue to be disrupted, this figure is estimated to rise to 190 million doses by the end of June.

The US administration will also mount a multilateral effort with democracies to cope with the pandemic, and Biden said he expects to announce progress in these efforts at the G7 Summit to be hosted by the UK in JUNE.HTC