Joe Biden to announce US' move to buy 500 mn more Pfizer COVID vaccines to donate

President Joe Biden administration is set to announce that United States will purchase an additional 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine doses to donate to low and lower-middle-income countries. Senior officials of the United States' authorities mentioned the update while previewing the Global Summit to end the pandemic. The pledge to donate, which will start in January 2022, will bring the total promised US vaccine donations to more than 1.1 billion.

The US official further stated that the Biden-led administration has committed to donating over 600 million COVID vaccine doses to the world which includes 500 million Pfizer doses that the US had purchased earlier in 2020 to donate to over 100 nations. "The largest donation of COVID-19 vaccines by a single country ever," the official added. 

US to purchase 500 million Pfizer COVID vaccines to donate to other nations

According to senior administration officials, the objective of the effort is to vaccinate 70 per cent of the world's population against SARS-Cov-2 within a year's time.

"The United States is donating 1.1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world, free of charge, no strings attached," senior US administration officials told reporters. 

On September 23, Joe Biden will announce the additional purchase of Pfizer vaccines, wherein half a billion vaccines will be manufactured in the US domestically, and from January through September in 2022, the US will ship out nearly 800 million vaccines to the world. The announcement to donate comes to the fore as affluent countries have been facing withering criticism from the World Health Organisation for exhausting and investing in resources into plans to offer booster shots to the fully vaccinated population while vast swaths of the world are due for single jabs. 

In total, the US has, so farm shipped nearly 160 million of these doses to over a hundred nations around the world, namely, Peru to Pakistan, Sri Lanka to Sudan, El Salvador to Ethiopia, exceeding all other donations combined, the US official further told reporters. 

US set to announce future purchase of COVID vaccine doses for donation

While President Biden will commence the summit, more than a hundred organisations along with manufacturing private sectors and philanthropists are expected to attend. A batch of specific requests for commitments from these participants will also be redressed during the conclave. The officials have said that during the end of the summit, a list would be unveiled which will have specific targets for vaccines as well as donations of oxygen, tests, therapeutics and protective gear to parts of the world that need it. The idea is to work towards healthy security financing apparatus in a bid to ready preparations for future pandemics, senior US officials maintained. 

(Image: AP)