By Reena Bhardwaj
Washington [US], May 5 (ANI): President Joe Biden on Tuesday (local time) provided an update from the White House on goals for providing AstraZeneca‘s COVID-19 vaccine to countries by July 4.
“I am not prepared to announce who else we will be giving the vaccine to, but we are going to by the Fourth of July have spent about 10 per cent of what we have to other nations including some of the ones who you mentioned,” said Biden while responding to a question about when vaccines will be provided to countries like India and Brazil.
“We’re helping Brazil and India, significantly. I spoke to Prime Minister Modi. What he needs most is the material and the parts to be able to have his machines that can make the vaccine work, we’re sending oxygen. We’re sending them a lot of the precursors. So, we’re doing a lot for India,” he said.
The US will be sending 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to other countries starting from June 2021, the White House announced earlier.
“That means of all the vaccines we produced for the United States at that time, we will have given about 10 per cent to the rest of the world as a significant humanitarian commitment in addition to our funding of COVAX,” said Biden.
On Tuesday, Biden announced a plan of ensuring 70 per cent of American adults receive at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine by Independence Day.
“Our goal by July 4 is to have 70 per cent of adult Americans with at least one shot and 160 million Americans fully vaccinated,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday.
“That means giving close to 100m shots – some first shots, others second shots – over the next 60 days.”
At the briefing, President Biden said that he has not yet announced whether his administration will support a global push to waive intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines.
“We’re going to decide that as we go along,” he told reporters following a White House briefing on vaccine distribution. “I haven’t made that decision yet.”
The Biden administration is facing pressure from the international community, drug pricing advocates and congressional Democrats to back a move that would temporarily waive the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS), that protects pharmaceutical trade secrets.
The World Trade Organization will assess the waiver, which has effectively provided pharmaceutical companies monopoly over vaccine production, potentially locking out poor countries from expanding their supplies. The Biden administration is expected to set its position clearly at the World Trade Organization meeting on Wednesday. (ANI)
