ONE urges more ambition on dose sharing announcement ahead of the G7

WASHINGTON — The ONE Campaign issued the below statement today in response to the White House announcement on how the US will deploy some of its excess COVID-19 vaccines, and cautioned that more ambition and US global leadership are needed ahead of next week’s G7 meeting.

Tom Hart, acting CEO, The ONE Campaign:

“The world is facing a vaccine access crisis and has been desperately waiting for the US plan to donate excess doses. While the COVID-19 blaze is being contained in the US, the fire is still raging globally, putting us all at continued risk. Today’s announcement to donate some of our excess vaccine doses with COVAX is a welcome step that will save lives and help the world extinguish this global pandemic faster. However, it’s disappointing to see delays in donating the 60 million AstraZeneca doses – which have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization and will go unused otherwise.

“The administration will soon have hundreds of millions of surplus doses to donate. Now is the time to make that clear and push other countries with surpluses to do the same. Lives and livelihoods depend on this.

“Less than 1 percent of COVID-19 vaccine doses globally have been administered to people in low-income countries. This is a once in a generation crisis, and as we approach the G7 next week, the world is looking to the US for global leadership and more ambition is needed.”