Ahead of G7 meeting, ONE calls on Biden to devise global plan to share 450 million excess COVID-19 vaccine doses
WASHINGTON — As President Biden prepares to meet with G7 leaders on Friday, The ONE Campaign, the global health and anti-poverty organization cofounded by Bono, is calling on the Biden administration to develop a plan to share excess COVID-19 vaccine doses. Even if the US vaccinates 100 percent of its population, new analysis from ONE shows the US has purchased at least 453 million excess COVID-19 vaccine doses that could be used to vaccinate people in the world’s poorest countries.
According to reports, the Biden administration plans to develop a framework to donate excess vaccine doses, but to date, no formal plan has been released. Experts warn that wealthy countries hoarding scarce vaccine doses could extend the lifespan of this pandemic. The below table shows a global breakdown of the 1.25 billion expected excess doses from five countries (and the EU) who have purchased the most vaccines to date.
View full analysis and report here.
Tom Hart, North America executive director at The ONE Campaign:
“It’s no longer a question of if the United States will get enough shots for everyone who wants one, but what we plan to do with the excess doses we have purchased. As G7 leaders prepare to meet for the first time since this pandemic started, the Biden administration should show strong global leadership and establish a framework and timeline for a global plan to distribute excess vaccine doses to countries who need it while simultaneously vaccinating the US’ domestic population.
As we’ve seen with the virus variants, the longer this pandemic goes on, the more vulnerable we are. It’s in everyone’s interest to get vaccines distributed equitably as quickly as possible.”
BACKGROUND
ONE’s analysis looked at G20 countries and the EU and uses the following parameters to define what constitutes “excess doses” that should be shared with other countries:
- We count procured doses of the five leading vaccines that have been proven safe and effective in clinical trials, and have obtained regulatory approval or are expected to obtain regulatory approval in the first half of 2021: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Janssen (J&J), and Novavax.
- We assume that countries able to donate will maintain sufficient enough doses to vaccinate 100 percent of their populations and donate only excess supply.
- This conservative approach finds that five countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, and US) plus the EU block of 27 countries could share close to nearly 1 billion doses of leading COVID-19 vaccines with other countries and still retain enough supply to have enough doses to inoculate their entire populations.