U.S. doubling buys of vaccine for world
Biden commits to 1 billion doses in pursuit of 70% global inoculation
President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States is doubling to 1 billion doses its purchase of Pfizer covid-19 shots to share with the world as he embraces the goal of vaccinating 70% of the global population within the next year.
The stepped-up U.S. commitment marked the cornerstone of a global vaccination summit that Biden convened virtually on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, as he encouraged well-off nations to do more to get the coronavirus under control.
World leaders, aid groups and global health organizations have grown increasingly vocal about the slow pace of global vaccinations and the inequity of access to shots.
“Global health security until now has failed, to the tune of 4.5 million lives and counting,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said during the summit, referring to the con
firmed global death toll from the coronavirus. “We have effective vaccines against covid-19. We can end the pandemic. And that is why I have been appealing for a global vaccination plan, and I hope this summit is a step in that direction.”
The purchase of another 500 million shots brings the total U.S. commitment to more than 1.1 billion doses through 2022. About 160 million shots supplied by the U.S. have already been distributed to more than 100 countries, representing more donations than the rest of the world combined. The remaining American doses will be distributed over the coming year.
“To beat the pandemic here, we need to beat it everywhere,” Biden said. “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,” he added.
Biden said the U.S. would also increase its funding to global aid groups that are administering shots.
The latest purchase reflects only a fraction of what will be necessary to meet a goal of vaccinating 70% of the global population — and 70% of the citizens of each nation — by next September’s U.N. meeting. It’s a target pushed by global aid groups that Biden threw his weight behind.
Biden is pressing other countries to do more to follow through on their vaccine-sharing plans.
“We need other high-income countries to deliver on their own ambitious vaccine donations and pledges,” Biden said. He called on wealthy countries to commit to donating, rather than selling, the shots to poorer nations and to provide them “with no political strings attached.”
The European Union committed to donating 500 million doses, a slight increase from its earlier announced plans, according to a joint statement from the bloc and the U.S.
“We call for nations that are able to vaccinate their populations to double their dose-sharing commitments or to make meaningful contribu- tions to vaccine readiness,” the statement said.
DISPARITIES CRITICIZED
The American response has come under criticism for being too modest, particular- ly as the administration advocates for providing booster shots to tens of millions of Americans before vulnerable people in poorer nations have received even a first dose.
“We have observed failures of multilateralism to respond in an equitable, coordinated way to the most acute moments. The existing gaps between nations with regard to the vaccination process are unheard of,” Colombian President Ivan Duque said Tuesday at the United Nations.
More than 5.9 billion covid-19 doses have been administered globally over the past year, representing about 43% of the global population. But there are vast disparities in distribution, with many lower-income nations struggling to vaccinate even the most vulnerable shares of their populations. Some have yet to exceed 2% to 3% vaccination rates.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said the “triumph” of speedy vaccine development was offset by political “failure” that produced inequitable distribution.
“In science, cooperation prevailed; in politics, individualism. In science, shared information reigned; in politics, reserve. In science, teamwork predominated; in politics, isolated effort,” Pinera said.
The World Health Organization says only 15% of promised donations of vaccines — from rich countries that have access to large quantities of them — have been delivered. The U.N. health agency has said it wants countries to fulfill their dose-sharing pledges “immediately” and make shots available for programs that benefit poor countries, particularly in Africa.
Covax, the U.N.-backed program to ship vaccines to all countries, has struggled with production issues, supply shortages and a near-cornering of the market for vaccines by wealthy nations.
The WHO has urged companies that produce vaccines to prioritize Covax and make public their supply schedules. It also has appealed to wealthy countries to avoid broad rollouts of booster shots so that doses can be made available to health care workers and vulnerable people in the developing world. Such calls have largely gone ignored.
Covax has missed nearly all of its vaccine-sharing targets. Its managers also have lowered their ambitions to ship vaccines by the end of this year, dropping from an original target of 2 billion doses worldwide to hoping for 1.4 billion now. Even that mark could be missed.
As of Tuesday, Covax had shipped more than 296 million doses to 141 countries.
“Today’s summit was full of speeches but tragically lacking in action,” said Abby Maxman, Oxfam America’s president and CEO. “While we commend President Biden for rallying world leaders to commit to vaccinate 70% of the world by this time next year, we have yet to see an effective plan to meet this goal. President Biden and leaders of rich countries should listen to what leaders from developing countries are asking for: the rights and the recipe to make their own vaccine doses.”
Biden earlier this year broke with European allies to embrace waivers to intellectual property rights for the vaccines, but there was no movement Wednesday toward the necessary global consensus on the issue required under World Trade Organization rules.
While some nongovernmental organizations have called those waivers vital to boosting global production of the shots, U.S. officials say it is not the most constricting factor causing the inequitable vaccine distribution — and some privately doubt the waivers for the highly complex shots would lead to enhanced production.
The 70% global target is ambitious, not least because of the U.S. experience. Biden had set a goal of vaccinating 70% of the U.S. adult population by July 4, but persistent vaccine hesitance contributed to the nation not meeting that target until a month later.
Nearly 64% of the entire U.S. population has now received at least one dose, and less than 55% is fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
NEW VARIANTS FEARED
Aid groups have warned that the persistent inequities risk extending the pandemic, which could lead to new and more dangerous variants. The delta variant has proved to be more transmissible than the original strain, though the existing vaccines have been effective at preventing nearly all serious illness and death.
A top WHO scientist said Tuesday that delta is “by far” the world’s dominant coronavirus variant.
The global body downgraded its advisories on three other virus variants in a reflection of how delta is “outcompeting and replacing” everything else.
“Less than 1% of the sequences that are available right now are alpha, beta and gamma,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on covid-19, said in a video, referring to the three other variants the organization considers “of concern.”
“Of those four variants of concern, delta is, by far, the most transmissible,” Van Kerkhove added. “If delta is identified or starts to circulate in a country where there is beta … [delta] has quickly replaced the variant there.”
The delta variant has appeared in 185 countries.
The mu variant, which has been identified thousands of times in the U.S. and had raised concerns that it may be more resistant to vaccines than its sibling variants, is also being replaced in countries where delta is present, Van Kerkhove said.
“Lambda and mu don’t seem to be dominant,” Van Kerkhove said.
Separately on Tuesday, the WHO reclassified three other variants — eta, iota and kappa — to “monitoring” status, indicating they “no longer pose a major added risk to global public health” as they are being outcompeted by delta.