Unused, United States Distributes 4 Million Doses Of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 Vaccine

AstraZeneca Vaccine. (Wikimedia Commons / Agencia Brasilia)

JAKARTA - The United States government plans to distribute four million doses of their AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. Millions of doses of this vaccine are not used in Uncle Sam's country.

The plan is for this vaccine to be distributed to Mexico and Canada in a loan agreement, which is subject to provisions for various vaccines with allies.

White House spokesman Jen Psaki said the plan was for Mexico to receive 2.4 million doses of the vaccine. Meanwhile Canada will receive about 1.5 million doses of the vaccine.

"It is not completely finished, but it is our goal. Ensuring our neighbors can contain the spread of the virus is an important mission to end the pandemic," Psaki said at his daily briefing.

The United States authorities are under pressure from the international community, in line with the abundant stocks of AstraZeneca vaccines in the country, even though they have not yet received the authority to use them.

It is known that AstraZeneca has millions of doses made in United States facilities. They will prepare 30 million doses of vaccine in early April.

"The agreement to share vaccines does not affect President Joe Biden's plans to provide a vaccine to all adults in the United States by the end of May. And does not affect the supply of available vaccines," said a senior administration official.

Vaccines that are removable, or ready-to-use, are loaned under an agreement that the United States hopes to be paid back with a dose in return. Senior government officials say it will be done later this year.

Adequate dosage

Psaki said the United States has access to 7 million doses of the release of AstraZeneca vaccine, but has no plans to share it with any country at this time, other than Canada and Mexico.

"We have a number of requests from countries around the world and of course we will continue the conversation," he said.

An AstraZeneca spokesman declined to comment on the deal, but stressed that the dosage in the United States is owned by the US government.

Earlier, President Joe Biden said if the United States had a surplus of vaccines, he would share them with the rest of the world. The White House is focused on vaccinating people in the United States, having recorded more than 530,000 people who have died from the virus, the most in the world.

"The United States is prepared to launch the AstraZeneca vaccine in the country if it gets permission from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," the White House said.

Meanwhile, in the COVAX global vaccine agreement, which aims to send the corona virus vaccine to poor countries. The United States has pledged US $ 4 billion worth of vaccine aid.

Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson would meet the need for vaccines in the United States. The three of them are ready to fulfill nearly 500 million doses of vaccine, enough for all adults, without using the AstraZeneca vaccine.