The US is under increasing pressure to share Covid-19 vaccine doses with less wealthy nations, as advocates call for prevention of an emerging “vaccine apartheid” and point to the strategic and diplomatic importance of sharing essential medicines.
Calls to share vaccine doses grew louder this week after the Biden administration announced an additional purchase of 100 million vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson. The American government has now bought enough doses of vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson to vaccinate 500 million people — nearly the entire eligible population twice over.
The administration also holds the rights to 100 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses. The vaccine has not been authorised in the US, but is authorised for use elsewhere in the world. AstraZeneca asked the US to give “thoughtful consideration” to donating the vaccines elsewhere, a spokesperson for the company said.
“I’m doing this because, in this wartime effort, we need maximum flexibility,” Biden said at a White House briefing announcing the purchase this week. “There is always a chance that we’ll encounter unexpected challenges.”
On Friday, Biden and the leaders of Japan, Australia and India – an informal working group known as the Quad announced they would work to increase manufacturing capacity, with the aim of sending 1bn doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Asian and Pacific island countries by 2022.
But Biden administration officials have continued to resist sending stockpiled vaccine doses abroad, saying it is part of a plan to be “over-prepared and over-supplied” in the event emerging Covid-19 variants or waning immunity require booster shots.
“We want to be a part of the effort around the world to vaccinate people around the world in a range of countries,” said the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, citing the US’s $2bn commitment to Covax, the global effort to share Covid-19 vaccines.
However, she said the president’s “first priority and focus is on ensuring that the American people are vaccinated. And once we are at that point, we will have a discussion about what’s next”.
The Biden administration intends to lift all vaccine eligibility requirements by 1 May, and hopes to vaccinate all eligible 267 million Americans by the Fourth of July holiday. More than 530,000 Americans have died after contracting the virus, a number the administration often cites when defending its reliance on the vaccine rollout.
“As I’ve told you before, I carry a card in my pocket with the number of Americans who have died from Covid to date,” said Biden in a primetime speech on Thursday. “It’s on the back of my schedule. As of now, the total deaths in America: 527,726. That’s more deaths than in World War I, World War II, the Vietnam war and 9/11 combined.”
However, countries such as China and Russia have agreed to share vaccines to gain a strategic advantage. China’s vaccine manufacturers have pledged half a billion doses to 45 countries.
“We may be outcompeted by others who are more willing to share, even if they’re doing it for cynical reasons,” said Ivo H Daalder, a former Nato ambassador and the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, to the New York Times. “I think countries are going to remember who was there for us when we needed them.”
A recent analysis by the World Bank found 82% of high-income countries have begun vaccinations, compared to 3% of low-income countries. A January forecast by the Economist Intelligence Unit found middle-income countries will likely mass vaccinate their populations by the end of 2022, but 84 of the world’s poorest nations will not likely complete mass vaccination campaigns until at least 2024, and may never reach herd immunity. — The Guardian
