Biden lays out plan to share 25mn Covid vaccine doses

Biden lays out plan to share 25mn Covid vaccine doses

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(MENAFN - Gulf Times) The White House has laid out a plan for the United States to share 25mn surplus coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine doses with the world, and said it would lift some restrictions to allow other countries to buy US-made supplies for vaccine production more easily. President Joe Biden said the United States would share the vaccines without expectation of political favours in return. He has pledged to share some 80mn Covid-19 vaccines internationally this month. The United States will donate nearly 19mn doses through the Covax international vaccine sharing programme, he said in a statement. Through Covax, some 6mn doses would go to Latin America and the Caribbean, about 7mn doses to South and Southeast Asia, and roughly 5mn to Africa. The remaining doses, amounting to just over 6mn, would go directly from the United States to countries including Canada, Mexico, India, and South Korea, he said. ''We are sharing these doses not to secure favours or extract concessions,” Biden said in a statement. ''We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values.” Although the United States is working through the Covax facility co-run by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the White House retains final say in which countries receive US doses and how many, said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. The White House will base donation decisions on ''factors included achieving global coverage, responding to crises ... and helping as many countries as possible”, he said, adding that the United States intends to prioritise its neighbours, including Canada, Mexico and countries in Central and South America. Biden has come under pressure from the world community to share the US surplus of Covid-19 vaccines. For months, the White House has remained focused on getting Americans vaccinated after the coronavirus killed more than half a million people in the United States within the last year. However, the president has promised that the United States would become a supplier to other countries and pledged to send abroad at least 20mn doses of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE, Moderna Incorporated, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, on top of 60mn AstraZeneca Plc doses that he had already planned to give to other countries. The 25mn doses Biden announced yesterday will not include supply from AstraZeneca, the White House said. The White House is also removing special powers that it granted through the Defence Production Act (DPA) to certain vaccine makers that received United States funding but do not yet have US approvals, including AstraZeneca, Sanofi SA/GlaxoSmithKline Plc, and Novavax Incorporated. The DPA ratings give US producers priority access to supplies and equipment needed to manufacture the vaccines that are in short supply around the world. Lifting them could free up raw materials for major vaccine makers elsewhere, especially the Serum Institute of India (SII). Invoking the DPA helped build a huge local vaccine production system, while some companies overseas have struggled to get needed supplies to ramp up vaccine production. The SII, the world’s largest vaccine maker and a top supplier of Covid-19 shots to low- and middle-income countries, had criticised the use of the DPA, and Reuters reported in May that a shortage of US-made raw materials would hit production of Novavax’s vaccine. ''That is a start, at least – the Biden administration acting to stop harming the global response. Now, we need a DPA for the world,” said Peter Maybarduk, access to medicines director at consumer watchdog Public Citizen, which has argued that the United States should use the DPA to scale up global vaccine production. White House Covid-19 adviser Jeff Zients said the United States will continue to donate additional doses throughout the summer as more supply becomes available. The US announcement came amid growing concern about the huge disparity in vaccination rates in developing countries versus advanced economies. The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank urged the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies yesterday to release any excess Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries as soon as possible, and called on manufacturers to ramp up production to benefit poor countries. Pfizer has begun independently exporting millions of its US-made shots largely to countries in Central and South America, Reuters reported last month. Many Latin American countries have a dire need for Covid-19 vaccines as they combat outbreaks. Brazil has been one of the world’s hardest hit countries by the pandemic, reporting a total of more than 15mn cases and 400,000 deaths, while Peru this week revised its Covid-19 death toll, making it the country with the worst per capita fatality rate. MENAFN03062021000067011011ID1102207575

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