Biden pledges $4b for global Covid-19 vaccine programme

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US President Joe Biden. — AFP

Washington - The US president to make the announcement at the virtual meeting of G-7 countries today

By AP

Published: Fri 19 Feb 2021, 2:31 AM

President Joe Biden will use his first big presidential moment on the global stage at Friday’s Group of Seven meeting of world leaders to announce that the US will soon begin releasing $4 billion for an international effort to bolster the purchase and distribution of coronavirus vaccine to poor nations, White House officials said.

Biden will also encourage G-7 partners to make good on their pledges to Covax, an initiative by the World Health Organisation to improve access to vaccines, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview Biden’s announcement.

Former President Donald Trump declined to participate in the Covax initiative because of its ties to WHO, the Geneva-based agency that Trump accused of covering up China’s missteps in handling the virus at the start of the public health crisis. Trump pulled the US out of the WHO, but Biden moved quickly after his inauguration last month to rejoin and confirmed that the US would contribute to Covax.

The $4 billion in US funding was approved by Congress in December and will be distributed through 2022.

The US is committed to working through Covax to ensure “equitable distribution of vaccines and funding globally,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday.

It remains to be seen how G-7 allies will take Biden’s calls for greater international cooperation on vaccine distribution given that the US refused to take part in the initiative under Trump and that there are growing calls for the Biden administration to distribute some US-manufactured vaccine supplies overseas.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview on Thursday with the Financial Times, called on the US and European nations to allocate up to 5 per cent of current vaccine supplies to developing countries — the kind of vaccine diplomacy that China and Russia have begun deploying.

And earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres sharply criticised the “wildly uneven and unfair” distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, noting 10 countries have administered 75 per cent of all vaccinations.

But Biden, who announced last week that the US will have enough supply of the vaccine by the end of the summer to inoculate 300 million people, remains focused for now on making sure every American is inoculated, administration officials say.

The Covax programme has already missed its own goal of beginning coronavirus vaccinations in poor countries at the same time that shots were rolled out in rich countries. WHO says Covax needs $5 billion in 2021.

Guterres said on Wednesday that 130 countries have not received a single dose of the vaccine and declared that “at this critical moment, vaccine equity is the biggest moral test before the global community.”

In addition to discussing vaccine distribution, Biden also plans to use the meeting to discuss G-7 countries’ collective competitiveness and economic challenges posed by China, according to the White House.

Biden is also scheduled to deliver a virtual address to the Munich Security Conference on Friday before traveling to Michigan to visit Pfizer’s vaccine manufacturing facility.