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The US will ship up to 60 million doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine abroad, the White House has announced, as the Biden administration is under pressure to help countries suffering from a resurgence of the virus.
U.S. officials said 10 million U.S.-made doses would be ready to ship “within weeks” after the Food and Drug Administration conducted quality control checks, with 50 million more in stages. during the months of May and June.
AZ has not applied for authorization in the U.S., though it has already prepared millions of doses to ship when it receives the green light from the U.S. drug regulator.
The White House did not say which countries would be prioritized for access to the vaccine, but demand is likely to be high from India, which suffers second catastrophic wave of infections. The White House said separately that it would send additional medical supplies and vaccine materials to the South Asian country following a request from New Delhi.
“The administration is studying options to share doses of AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the United States,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “We don’t need to use AstraZeneca in our fight against Covid.”
BioNTech / Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are licensed for use in the United States.
The pharmacist said: “Doses are part of it AstraZenecasupply commitments to the United States government. The US government is making decisions to send US supplies to other countries.
U.S. officials said they would also send materials such as filters to the India Serum Institute so it could manufacture more of its own AZ vaccines. “We are diverting our order of own supplies to the Serum Institute for its manufacture, due to the scope of the current situation [in] India and the. . . the state of our own production here at home, ”a senior official said.
The US had said above would ship several million doses of AstraZeneca to Canada and Mexico.
Monday’s announcement came shortly after President Joe Biden spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer US support in fighting the country’s latest wave of cases, hospitalizations and deaths .
New Delhi on Saturday set a world record of 349,000 new infections, along with more than 2,700 deaths, although experts believe the actual figures are being widely uninformed.
The Biden administration said over the weekend that it was sending therapeutic products, test kits, fans and personal protective equipment to India, in addition to exploring other ways to provide oxygen “urgently”.
Multinational corporations have pledged to make their own contributions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has created a web portal for companies to make donations or offer to supply equipment.
The United States has been subdued intense pressure to release supplies of vaccine ingredients to global manufacturers, including in India. Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla called on Biden on Twitter to “lift the embargo on U.S. raw material exports” to allow for boosted vaccine manufacturing.
Mahima Datla, executive director of pharmaceutical company Biological E, has also accused Washington of hampering global manufacturing by forcing U.S. suppliers to prioritize U.S. government contracts.
Both Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, have invoked the Korean War-era defense production law during the pandemic to ensure priority supplies of materials needed to control the disease. But with Washington having ordered more than enough doses for every adult in the U.S., U.S. raw material suppliers are struggling to get enough to fulfill contracts abroad.
On Monday, the White House withdrew claims it had imposed export controls or export bans on vaccines or on materials and supplies used to make the blows.
“Making vaccines requires a lot of specialized materials and not enough to circulate,” an administration official said.
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The person added that using the DPA to require U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to prioritize U.S. government contracts “did not mean that there was an export ban or a de facto ban or an embargo or restrictions on sales to any other customer or external customer, anywhere “.
“There is only more global manufacturing worldwide than suppliers can currently support,” they said.
Biden told Modi on Monday that the United States would show its “firm support for the people of India who have been affected by the recent rise in Covid-19 cases.”
European countries have done the same promised help. The UK said it would send hundreds of oxygen concentrators and fans following a request from India. The EU said it was “coordinating” oxygen and medicine supplies after activating its civil protection mechanism at the request of India.
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