U.S. will send $2 billion for global COVAX program targeting developing nations

President Joe Biden will announce plans to provide up to $4 billion to a global Covid-19 vaccine program hoped to assist developing nations, a move officials argue will support American national security concerns by helping control the pandemic globally.

The US will contribute the first $2 billion to a World Health Organization-backed program called COVAX that supports access to vaccines for 92 countries in the coming days. The remaining $2 billion will be contributed over the next two years. It includes another $500 million when additional donor pledges are fulfilled and initial doses are given.

While millions of Americans are still waiting to get vaccines, administrators said that offering the funds, which were mainly appropriated by Congress in December for foreign pandemic assistance, will help America by reducing the risk of more mutations that could extend the pandemic.

“We do think that it is vital to take a role in beating the pandemic globally and to really put U.S. leadership out there to do this,” a senior administration official said. “It’s critically important to surge vaccination globally.”

The move promotes Biden’s different approach to global incidents after former President Donald Trump withdrew from WHO and denied helping other countries before Americans. Still, senior administration leaders said that the US will only consider donating vaccines to lower-income nations, once enough to vaccinate all Americans.

The global aid organization UNICEF has said countries that have vaccinated their own health workers and populations at the highest risk of severe disease should supply vaccine doses with other countries so they can do the same. Nearly 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, have yet to administer a single dose, the group said, which UNICEF called a “self-defeating strategy” that will give a further opening for the virus to mutate.

It is also doubtful how much the funding will help in the short-term. Some global health ministers have complained that funding isn’t the issue when it comes to getting the vaccine quickly to developing countries because there isn’t enough vaccine to buy, a problem the US has contributed to by snatching up hundreds of millions of doses for Americans.

Biden will announce a virtual meeting Friday of G-7 leaders where the global pandemic reaction is expected to be the priority of the gathering.