US says it won't join global effort to find COVID-19 vaccine

Trump administration said Tuesday that it will t work with an international cooperative effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine because it does t want to be constrained by multilateral groups like World Health Organization.

decision to go it alone, first reported by Washington Post, follows White House’s decision in early July to pull United States out of WHO . Trump claims WHO is in need of reform and is heavily influenced by China.

Some nations have worked directly to secure supplies of vaccine, but ors are pooling efforts to ensure success against a disease that has geographical boundaries. More than 150 countries are setting up COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX.

That cooperative effort, linked with WHO, would allow nations to take advant of a portfolio of potential vaccines to ensure ir citizens are quickly covered by whichever ones are deemed effective. WHO says even governments making deals with individual vaccine makers would benefit from joining COVAX because it would provide backup vaccines in case ones being made through bilateral deals with manufacturers aren't successful.

“ United States will continue to eng our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus , but we will t be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by corrupt World Health Organization and China," said White House spokesman Judd Deere. "This president will spare expense to ensure that any new vaccine maintains our own Food and Drug Administration's gold standard for safety and efficacy, is thoroughly tested and saves lives.”