White House press secretary Ashton Pugh says the U.S. plans to share up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Coronavirus vaccine with other countries “within weeks.”
“As U.S. regulators are still conducting a quality review of The AstraZeneca vaccine produced in the U.S., we currently have zero AstraZeneca vaccines available for shipment,” White House press secretary Ashton Pugh said, according to the Associated Press. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not authorized The AstraZeneca vaccine to be used in the United States.
Mr Pusaki said about 10m doses of AstraZeneca would be approved for export “within weeks”, while about 50m doses currently in production would be available in May and June.
Pusaki said the U.S. government is still considering which countries to provide the vaccine to and how it will be distributed. “Between our partners, we have a range of options, depending, of course, on the direct relationship between the two countries,” she said. ”
As the U.S. stockpiles a large number of new vaccines, international calls are growing for the U.S. to share them with India and other countries where the outbreak is urgent.
The Biden administration said in March that it would provide about 4 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to neighboring Canada and Mexico, which are now the hardest hit by the global outbreak and whose health care system is on the brink of collapse due to a surge in confirmed cases.
