# US Vaccination Donation and COVAX Cause
BASED ON A REUTERS REPORT, the US will donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX program to low and middle-income countries. The plan is to buy the vaccines at cost, limiting the profits of private companies from the initiate. This is a welcome move as the Biden administration has been under pressure to take a decisive step in promoting vaccine equality globally. Out of the 500 million vaccines, 200 million will be dispatched this year, with the rest early next year. The partnership among these various actors envisions ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for everyone to finish the acute phase of the pandemic by the end of 2021.
COVAX collaborates with UNICEF as the key delivery partner between CEPI, Gavi, and the WHO.
Graph Share of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19 | Our World in Data
Source & Embed : Our World in Data
Over the past few weeks, One has spearheaded vaccinations for marginalized communities in low and medium-income countries, developing a roadmap for vaccinating 70 percent of the global population. Apart from the pressure from leaders and activists for vaccine equity, the spread of the Delta virus, a COVID-19 variant first seen in India, in the US, and Europe, could be another factor for the urgency for the global vaccination drive. The US registered about 98,000 new COVID-19 cases in the last seven days, according to data shared by Worldometer. Brazil, Argentina, and Columbia have ranked after India respectively in this category. India at a figure of ~7,40,000 is much ahead of the tally of Brazil. Read analysis about India’s second COVID-19 wave here.
The US donation is significant for the COVAX initiative; COVAX planned to deliver 2 billion doses of vaccines worldwide in 2021 and 1.8 billion doses to 92 lower-income economies by early 2022. Until 21 May, only 150 million doses had been pledged for the COVAX’s holistic mission. The recent US largesse makes the United States the biggest benefactor of the cause by a mile. China and Russia are two other major countries involved in vaccine diplomacy. The recent donation of vaccines by the US towards the COVAX cause could be a motivating factor for other countries to follow vaccination giving; the path ahead for global equitable vaccination distribution might be treacherous and less traveled but suddenly less murky.
Recommended read under Insights: COVID-19 What did we learn.