Top American infectious disease experts said that the United States is expanding its Covid-19 vaccine production to help countries that have difficulty obtaining life-saving vaccines.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s medical adviser, was quoted as saying: “We are now working to greatly expand our capacity to enable us to donate hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.” NBC Finance Channel .
The COVAX program, the International Vaccine Sharing Program, is coordinated by the Vaccine Alliance Gavi; the Epidemic Prevention Innovation Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO) aim to provide 2 billion doses of vaccine globally by the end of 2021.
Fauci said that the United States has provided more than 120 million doses of vaccines to 80 countries and donated US$4 billion in resources to COVAX.
“We are doing both,” Fauci said of distributing booster vaccines and helping other countries. “We are very sensitive to the needs of developing countries that require vaccine doses, but we believe we can do both at the same time.”
At the same time, due to the Delta variant, the number of Covid infections and deaths in the United States has surged. According to the latest update from Johns Hopkins University on Monday morning, it is still the worst-hit country, with 3,77,08,064 and 6,28,499 cases and deaths, the highest in the world.
Fauci said that if more people were vaccinated, the United States could avoid the continued acceleration of the increase in cases.
“We can do a lot of things,” Fauci said, noting that 90 million people in the United States are eligible for the vaccine but have not yet been vaccinated.
“We want to vaccinate as many unvaccinated people as possible,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci also pointed out that it is difficult to predict when the current delta outbreak will reach its peak, but once the infection slows down, he doubts whether Covid, unlike the flu that requires an annual injection, requires repeated vaccination to maintain a high level of protection.
“I don’t think this will be the case. I think this third shot will make us go very far,” Fauci said.
