Biden vows speedy donation of 25 million vaccine doses
President Joe Biden said yesterday the US would swiftly donate an initial allotment of 25 million doses of surplus vaccine abroad through the United Nations-backed Covax programme, promising infusions for South and Central America, Asia, Africa and others at a time of glaring shortages abroad and more than ample supplies at home.
The doses mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging Covax effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries.
The announcement came just hours after World Health Organisation officials in Africa made a new plea for vaccine sharing because of an alarming situation on the continent, where shipments have ground to “a near halt” while virus cases have spiked in the past two weeks.
Overall, the White House has announced plans to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June, most through Covax. Officials say a quarter of the nation’s excess will be kept in reserve for emergencies and for the US to share directly with allies and partners.
Of the first 19 million donated through Covax, about six million doses will go to South and Central America, seven million to Asia and five million to Africa.
“As long as this pandemic is raging anywhere in the world, the American people will still be vulnerable,” Biden said in a statement. “And the United States is committed to bringing the same urgency to international vaccination efforts that we have demonstrated at home.”
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the US “will retain the say” on where doses distributed through Covax ultimately go.
But he also said: “We’re not seeking to extract concessions, we’re not extorting, we’re not imposing conditions the way that other countries who are providing doses are doing . . . . These are doses that are being given, donated free and clear to these countries, for the sole purpose of improving the public health situation and helping end the pandemic.”
The remaining six million in the initial distribution of 25 million will be directed by the White House to US allies and partners including Mexico, Canada, South Korea, West Bank and Gaza, India, Ukraine, Kosovo, Haiti, Georgia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as for UN frontline workers.
The White House did not say when the doses would begin shipping overseas, but press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration hoped to send them “as quickly as we can logistically get those out the door”.
Vice-President Kamala Harris told some US partners they would begin receiving doses, in separate calls with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lpez Obrador, President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago. Harris will visit Guatemala and Mexico in the coming week.
The long-awaited vaccine sharing plan comes as demand for jabs in the US has dropped significantly — more than 63 per cent of adults have received at least one dose — and as global inequities in supply have become more pronounced. Scores of countries have requested doses from the US, but to date only Mexico and Canada have received a combined 4.5 million doses. The US also plans to share enough jabs with South Korea to vaccinate its 550,000 troops who serve alongside American service members on the peninsula. White House Covid-19 co-ordinator Jeff Zients said a million Johnson & Johnson doses were being shipped to South Korea yesterday.
The US has committed more than US$4 billion ($5.60b) to Covax, but with vaccine supplies short — and wealthy nations locking up most of them — the greater need than funding has been immediate access to actual doses, to overcome what health officials have long decried as unequal access to the vaccines.
The US action meant “frontline workers and at-risk populations will receive potentially life-saving vaccinations” and bring the world “a step closer to ending the acute phase of the pandemic,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, which is leading the Covax alliance.
However, Tom Hart the acting CEO of The ONE Campaign, said that while yesterday’s announcement was a “welcome step, the Biden administration needed to commit to sharing more doses.
“The world is looking to the US for global leadership, and more ambition is needed,” he said.
Biden has committed to providing other nations with all 60 million USproduced doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has yet to be authorised for use in America but is widely approved around the world. The AstraZeneca doses have been held up for export by a weeks-long safety review, and without them Biden will be hard-pressed to meet his sharing goal.
The initial 25 million doses announced yesterday will come from existing federal stockpiles of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.