The United States officially confirmed on Thursday (10) that it will purchase 500 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer for a donation and released the list of countries that will receive the vaccination agents. There are 92 low-income countries and the African Union, and Brazil is not one of them.
According to the White House, this is the biggest purchase and donation of vaccines made by a single country so far in the pandemic.
The 92 grant recipient countries were defined by the early market engagement of the Gavi Global Alliance and include several African countries such as Angola, Morocco, Cape Verde, Nigeria and Kenya, Asian countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, and Latin America. and the Caribbean, such as Haiti, Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Donations will be made through the Covax system, and it is expected that 200 million doses will be sent by the end of this year, starting in August. The remaining 300 million doses will be delivered in the first half of 2022, specifies the US government.
The United States must buy the doses at cost, according to the New York Times.
White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Zients said in a statement Wednesday that Biden will use the pace of home vaccination to “bring democracies around the world together to resolve this crisis on a global scale, states -United paving the way for the creation of an arsenal of vaccines that will be decisive in our global fight against Covid-19. “
The deal was struck in the past four weeks by Zients, according to Reuters.
Another negotiation to buy a similar number of doses from manufacturer Moderna is also reportedly underway, a person familiar with the matter told U.S. broadcaster CNBC. The drugmaker did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The initiative is part of the Democratic administration’s efforts to meet demands for strong immunization program assistance from countries without access to the necessary amount of doses for their populations. Although cumbersome, the purchase is far from the 11 billion doses that the WHO (World Health Organization) considers necessary to immunize the world.