Under pressure, US to give 500M more COVID vax doses to world

Biden pledge comes after UN chief slams global leaders over inequitable distribution, calling it an ‘obscenity’

WASHINGTON—The United States on Wednesday promised to buy 500 million more COVID-19 vaccine doses to donate to other countries as it comes under increasing pressure to share its supply with the rest of the world.

President Joe Biden made the announcement during a virtual summit aimed at boosting global vaccination rates against the coronavirus and rallying world leaders to do more.

“To beat the pandemic here we need to beat it everywhere,” Biden said as he kicked off the summit, which included leaders from Britain, Canada, Indonesia and South Africa as well as World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“This is an all hands on deck crisis,” Biden said of the pandemic that has raged since early 2020, killing more than 4,900,000 people.

The additional vaccines will bring US donations to more than 1.1 billion doses, far short of the 5 billion to 6 billion doses global health experts say is needed by poorer countries. Delivery of the new tranche will begin in January.

Health experts say rich countries have not done enough and have criticized the United States in particular for planning booster shots for fully vaccinated Americans while much of the world’s population still does not have access to vaccines.

Welcome but insufficient

They say the planned US dose donations are welcome but insufficient and note the Pfizer vaccine is difficult to scale up and to administer in poorer countries, which lack sophisticated infrastructure for storing and shipping shots.

“We will need 6 billion to 9 billion doses of vaccines” to inoculate the developing world, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National Tropical School of Medicine at Baylor University in Texas.

“Donations alone aren’t enough to end this pandemic. The vast majority of lofty donation pledges haven’t materialized so far,” said Carrie Teicher, director of programs for Doctors Without Borders.

Leaders from developing nations have warned that vaccine hoarding by wealthy countries could lead to new coronavirus variants.

Regions with greatest need

Biden said the United States would provide $370 million “to support administering these shots” and more than $380 million to help the Global Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) handle vaccine distribution in regions with the greatest need.

The vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE will be made in the United States and shipped to low- and lower middle-income countries.

A source familiar with the issue said the US government would pay some $7 per dose.

With more than 670,000 people having died from COVID-19 in the United States, Biden has made clear his priority has been to vaccinate Americans.

Imbalances

But the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus and outrage about imbalances over vaccine distribution has put pressure on Washington to do more.

“For every one shot we’ve administered to date in America, we have now committed to do three shots to the rest of the world,” Biden said.

In June, the Biden administration agreed to buy and donate 500 million doses. Under the terms of that contract, the United States will pay Pfizer and BioNTech around $3.5 billion or $7 a dose for the shots.

The COVAX facility, backed by the WHO and Gavi, has delivered more than 286 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to 141 countries, Gavi data shows.

In September the organizations running the facility had to cut their 2021 delivery target by nearly 30 percent to 1.425 billion doses.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres reprimanded world leaders on Tuesday for the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, describing it as an “obscenity” and giving the globe an “F in Ethics.”

For every one shot we’ve administered to date in America, we have now committed to do three shots to the rest of the world

Joe Biden American president