Coronavirus: Joe Biden pledges to donate 500 million more vaccine doses to other countries

The move will double US donations to over 1.1 billion doses, still far short of the 5 billion to 6 billion doses needed by poorer countries

The additional Pfizer shots will be made in the US and shipped to low and lower middle-income countries starting in January

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A health worker prepares a syringe with the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at a clinic in Reading, Pennsylvania, on September 14. Photo: AP

Published: 12:39am, 23 Sep 2021Updated: 2:16am, 23 Sep 2021

The United States on Wednesday promised to buy 500 million more Covid-19 vaccine doses to donate to other countries as it comes under increasing pressure to share its supply with the rest of the world.

The White House is hosting a four-hour virtual summit aimed at boosting global vaccination rates and the administration of President Joe Biden wants to show it is leading by example.

“To beat the pandemic here we need to beat it everywhere,” Biden said, kicking off the summit, which includes leaders from Canada, Indonesia, South Africa and Britain, as well as World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“This is an all hands on deck crisis,” he said of the pandemic that has raged since early 2020, killing at least 4,913,000 people.

US President Joe Biden (with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations) speaks during a virtual Covid-19 Summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday. Photo: Bloomberg

The additional vaccines will bring US donations to the rest of the world to more than 1.1 billion doses, far short of the 5 billion to 6 billion doses global health experts say are needed by poorer countries.

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