U.S. to donate 20 million additional vaccine shots to developing countries

The United States of America will donate 20 million COVID-19 vaccine shots by the end of June, US President Joe Biden has stated. He specified that, unlike the previously announced donation of 60 million AstraZeneca doses, these will be U.S.-approved vaccines, that is, Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson.

America will never be fully safe while this pandemic is raging globally. That’s why today, I’m announcing that over the next six weeks we will send 80 million vaccine doses overseas.

It is the right thing to do. It is the smart thing to do. It is the strong thing to do.

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 17, 2021

“No ocean is wide enough; no wall is high enough to keep us safe. Rampant disease and death in other countries can destabilize them — those countries — and pose a risk to us as well,” Biden said. “We need to help fight the disease around the world to keep us safe here at home and to do the right thing helping other people,” he added.

However, the U.S. administration has not specified which countries will receive the batches of vaccine that have been pledged. This has prompted criticism from experts who noted that more clarity was needed calling for a clear-cut global pandemic strategy. In this respect, Biden said that a global strategy would be coordinated with U.S. allies, and progress on its elaboration would be announced at the G7 summit in June.

The U.S. reached the decision to offer the vaccine donation three months after Biden made it clear that the U.S. would share any vaccine surplus with other countries only after making sure that all Americans had an opportunity to get vaccinated. So far, 48% of the U.S. population (over 280 million people) have received one dose of the vaccine and 38% (128 million) have been fully vaccinated, according to federal statistics. At the same time, the daily number of new coronavirus cases fell under 30,000 for the first time since June 2020 and the number of deaths now stands at about 550 per day compared to over 3,000 in January 2021.

Biden’s announcement has come amid continuously growing concern regarding the escalation of the pandemic in a number of countries, including India and Brazil. Despite concerted efforts to vaccinate people there, the contamination rates have continued to increase.

Under these circumstances, the World Health Organization has called for immediate funding to be able to support pandemic-hit countries.

“The current response plan is underfunded and the vast majority of that is ring-fenced by donors for specific countries or activities, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a news conference. “We need high-income countries that have contracted much of the immediate global supply of vaccines to share them now,” he said.

Apart from donating vaccines, the U.S. has also pledged to contribute US$4 billion to the UN-led initiative COVAX which aims to deliver vaccines to the poorest nations. The US is the biggest single contributor to COVAX, followed by Germany, the UK, and the EU and it is committed to share five times more than any other country.

About 1.5 billion COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally so far with 60% being in the 20 wealthiest countries while only 0.3% have been made available to low-income states. So far, COVAX has delivered 65 million doses of vaccines to 124 countries which might put at risk its goal to have 20% of the global population vaccinated by the end of this year.