HomeHow many shots the US alone can distribute per month including currently...

How many shots the US alone can distribute per month including currently pledged donations and additional available stock – report

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President Joe Biden decided to make the pledge during a virtual Covid-19 summit held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, promising an “arsenal of vaccines.”

With the additional shots, the United States’ total commitment to vaccine sharing will exceed one billion vaccines.

According to experts, 11 billion doses are needed to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population.

By the end of 2021, the World Health Organization has set a minimum target of 40% vaccine coverage in all countries.

But the goal is unlikely to be met.

According to data from the University of Oxford, while many high-income countries have now given at least one shot to more than half of their populations, only 2% of people in low-income countries have received their first dose.

Global supply of covid vaccine is still insufficient

According to Airfinity, rich countries could have 1.2 billion extra doses by the end of the year, even if they run booster campaigns. If they are not donated, 241 million of them will go to waste. However, these must be sent as soon as possible.

Covax, a WHO-backed scheme that helps distribute vaccines fairly, told the BBC that too many of the donations it has received have come in small amounts, at the last minute, and with little time before they expire.

This makes their job of getting them to where they are needed extremely difficult. That will have to change if Biden is to meet his ambitious goal of vaccinating the entire world by this time next year.

The White House’s Covid summit comes as a study reveals that rich countries still have vaccine surpluses, many of which will be discarded soon.

Members of the G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States – pledged in June to donate one billion doses to poor countries over the next year.

President Biden pledged 580 million at the time, but the US has only delivered 160 million so far.

With current pledges and additional stock, the data below shows how many doses could be distributed per month.

By US

By UK

By European Union

COVAX scheme

The donated vaccines are routed through Covax, a global scheme supported by the WHO to ensure that doses reach those in need most.

Covax buys vaccines and then sells them at a low cost to middle-income countries, while also donating to poor countries.

In the United States, where more than 76 percent of adults have received at least one dose, there has been growing criticism that the country is doing too little to help the rest of the world.

On Friday, an FDA advisory panel recommended third doses of the Pfizer vaccine for people 65 and older.

The WHO has previously advised wealthy nations to delay providing boosters until lower-income countries’ vaccination rates improve.

Eight Democratic lawmakers wrote to Mr Biden last week:

“Clearly, there is an inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccine doses, and it is getting worse.”

Image Credit: Getty

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