WASHINGTON – President Biden will announce a total of $ 4 billion in US contributions to Covax’s international program, government officials said on Thursday, directly involving the nation in global efforts to provide Covid-19 vaccines to the poorest countries. of the world.
Mr. Biden will detail his plans in a virtual meeting on Friday with G-7 leaders, where topics should include the global response to the pandemic, efforts to revive the global economy, climate change and tensions with China.
In a call with reporters on Thursday, senior officials said Biden would announce an initial investment of $ 2 billion and invite other nations to join the World Health Organization’s vaccination effort and reinforce its commitments. The Biden administration has said the initial contribution will come from funds appropriated by Congress in December, which are expected to be disbursed by the end of this month.
The United States will begin to release an additional $ 2 billion by 2021 and 2022, officials said, when other countries keep their promises from existing donors and initial doses of the vaccine are delivered to low and middle-income countries.
A White House official said the Biden government’s commitment is “to ensure that there is global access to equitable, safe and effective vaccines to help fight the pandemic.”
“This pandemic is not going to end unless we end it globally,” added the official.
The Trump administration chose to leave the Covax project after former President Donald Trump took steps to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization because of its ties to China. Upon taking office in January, Biden acted quickly to reverse Trump’s decision. His government also immediately expressed its intention to commit to the multilateral global vaccination effort.
Covax intends to provide free Covid-19 vaccines to at least 20% of the populations in the 92 poorest countries in the world by the end of 2021. Just over 50 other nations, including Canada and upper-middle-income nations like South Africa and Mexico also ordered vaccines through Covax, but they have to pay for the doses themselves.
Biden will also ask the G-7 and other nations to put in billions more in resources to expand Covid-19’s global vaccines and strengthen the manufacture, supply and distribution of the vaccine, officials said.
Covax says it has negotiated deals for about 2.27 billion doses of vaccines this year. Most countries will receive a first shipment in March, with some small deliveries scheduled for the end of February.
Some countries have made bilateral donations of the vaccine to neighboring nations. Biden government officials stopped saying whether the United States would donate surplus vaccines, emphasizing the need to first inoculate the American public against the virus.
“Our current focus is to vaccinate Americans, get gun vaccines here and support Covax’s efforts,” said an official.
The Biden government secured contracts with Pfizer and Moderna for more than 200 million additional doses of the vaccine, which the president said should allow the majority of the adult US population to be vaccinated by the end of the summer.