QUAD to help India produce 1 bn COVID vaccine doses, boost global supply: Joe Biden

Addressing the UN COVID summit virtually, United States President Joe Biden said that the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) alliance will help India develop one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses. The decision aims to boost global vaccine supply by the end of 2022, the US President informed during his address.

Asserting that nothing is more important than working together to defeat COVID-19, Biden said, "Our QUAD partnership with India Japan, and Australia is on track to help produce at least one billion vaccine doses in India to boost the global supply by the end of 2022."

President Biden also informed that the US will purchase another half-billion doses of Pfizer and donate it to low and middle-income countries around the world. The doses are expected to be shipped around this time next year, he added. Additionally, the USA has planned to release sanctions worth $370 million to help scale up delivery and administering vaccine doses globally.

"We are working with partner nations, pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers to increase your own capacity and capability to produce and manufacture safe and highly effective vaccines in the own country," US President Joe Biden said.

As a part of a "historic commitment," the Biden administration has also decided to provide financial and manufacturing support to help Africa home produce more than 500 million doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccines. "This brings a total commitment to over 1.1 billion vaccines to be donated. To put it in another way, for everyone shot we have administered to date in America, we have now committed to do 3 shots to the rest of the world," Biden said. He briefly thanked Pfizer and its CEO and chairman Albert Bourla "to be partners and leader of this fight."

Biden urges countries to fulfil pledges

During his address at the COVID Summit, US President Biden urged high-income nations to fulfil their vaccine donation pledges in order to fight a strong footed battle against the coronavirus pandemic. "The United States is leading the world and vaccination donations. As we are doing that, we need other high-income countries to deliver on their ambitious vaccine donations and pledges," Biden said.

As per reports, the current vaccine donation announcement is on top of the 500 mn doses promised at the G7 summit in June. The US has so far shipped out nearly 130 million doses, nearly double the number it had brought for domestic use. Biden has also launched the EU-US vaccine partnership to oversee closely the expansion of global vaccine supply.

(With inputs from ANI, Image: AP/Unsplash/Representative)