US details plan to donate COVID vaccine doses worldwide
The donation of 80 million doses will take place during June, with specific plans laid out Thursday regarding the first group of 25 million doses.
The White House announced on Thursday details about the first 25 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine that the US will donate worldwide, as part of its plan to give away a total of 80 million doses this month.
About 19 million doses will be shared through the international coronavirus vaccine group COVAX, which will prioritize Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Another 6 million doses will be sent directly by the US to Mexico, Canada, South Korea, the West Bank and Gaza, a handful of other countries and United Nations frontline workers, the White House said.
The donation comes amid pressure on the US to share its vaccine as other countries continue to face high death tolls due to the pandemic. Johns Hopkins University reports that COVID has killed more than 3.7 million people worldwide since the coronavirus was first identified in December 2019. The donations also represent the progress that the US itself has made over the past six months with 63 percent of US adults already having received at least one dose of COVID vaccine, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According the Politico, the donation will include the three vaccines that have emergency use authorization in the US: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. It was also supposed to include AstraZeneca, but that vaccine has been tied up in a safety investigation of a manufacturing plant.
The announcement came a day after President Joe Biden announced major incentives to get 70% of US adults at least one vaccine dose before July 4.