Today, President Biden welcomed the historic commitment of the leaders of the G7 and guest countries to provide more than 1 billion additional COVID-19 vaccines for the world, starting this summer, of which the United States will contribute half a billion doses.
This commitment forms the basis of a comprehensive set of G7+ actions towards ending this global pandemic in 2022. The G7+ action plan that will be agreed to by leaders in Cornwall includes vaccinating the world’s most vulnerable, providing emergency supplies, bolstering world-wide economic recovery, and positioning the international community to prepare for, prevent, detect, and respond to future biological catastrophes.
The United States will lead the G7+ in a global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, providing 500 million safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for the world through COVAX, with delivery starting in August 2021. This donation, which President Biden announced yesterday, is the largest single donation of vaccines in history and comprises half of the G7+ commitment to provide an additional 1 billion safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine doses over the next 12 months, especially to the world’s most vulnerable.
In addition, we are taking concrete and tangible steps to meet the ambition of the G7+ and drive action to end this pandemic and prevent the next. We call on other countries and private sector partners to join us.
To end the global COVID-19 pandemic, the United States and the G7+ will:
- Accelerate Vaccination of the World’s Most Vulnerable
We are fully committed to working towards the ambitious goal of ending the pandemic. Yesterday’s announcement of half a billion new vaccine doses comes on top of both the at least 80 million vaccine doses previously announced by President Biden and the $2 billion in funding which the United States has previously provided to Gavi to support COVAX. We call on countries to donate additional doses of safe and effective vaccines, strengthen vaccine readiness, and work with private sector partners to vaccinate the world.
- Support Last Mile Vaccination and Getting Shots into Arms
The Biden-Harris Administration will be providing hundreds of millions in support for programs that provide assistance to help countries and health systems prepare for vaccination around the world, including in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. That assistance comes on top of longstanding U.S. support for countries and communities around the world for immunization and strengthening health systems.
- Save Lives Now with PPE and Emergency Medical Supplies
The Biden-Harris Administration is investing in efforts to help fragile countries with their emergency response, including lifesaving medical and other supplies to tackle COVID-19 surges while strengthening their health systems, building capacity to manage surges, and preventing disease spread. We must expand our emergency responses, including by delivering lifesaving medical supplies, oxygen, diagnostics, therapeutics, and PPE. We are providing emergency assistance in 2021 to regions that need it most, including sending multiple flights and more than $100 million in health assistance to India, and supporting responses in South Asia and Latin America as countries experience surges in COVID-19 cases.
Through the $11.5 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) for the global COVID-19 response, we will continue to strengthen our global response to and recovery from COVID-19, including by expanding investments in lifesaving medical supplies, including oxygen, diagnostics, therapeutics, and PPE. We urge the World Bank Group and the other Multilateral Development Banks to increase the speed of their financial support to the response.
- Boosting Global Supply and Supporting Surge Capacity
We must increase our investments in local production capacity for safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, raw materials, diagnostics, and medical supplies. We will help develop and sustain a global vaccine supply network for this pandemic and the next.
The Biden-Harris Administration is investing, through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), in local production capacity for safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, which will support at least 1 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2022. This includes our efforts through the Quad Vaccine Partnership of the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, and with peer Development Finance Institutions including the IFC, Proparco, and DEG to support vaccine manufacturing in Africa – for Africa. We strongly support the aim of developing a regional network of surge capacity to produce medical countermeasures, PPE, and other lifesaving treatments and supplies.
We recognize that the above immediate actions to end the pandemic contribute to our collective longer-term preparedness. We are committed to developing sustainable surge capacity in every region to scale up medical countermeasures and supply production on a “no regrets” basis at the first sign of a health crisis.
Simultaneously, we will work expeditiously to advance global health security to prevent future biological catastrophes:
- Transform Disease Surveillance and Early Warning
We must substantially strengthen the rapid detection of infectious disease threats. We will support the establishment of a coordinated global surveillance network to improve disease forecasting and surveillance, enable swift detection of pathogens, and translate early detection into action. We commit to accelerate development, production, and deployment of safe and effective countermeasures within 100 days.
The Biden-Harris Administration is investing $500 million from the ARP to modernize public health data and infrastructure including establishing a new Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will help lead a new global pandemic early warning network. The American Jobs Plan (AJP) includes $30 billion toward building U.S. pandemic readiness, including by accelerating our ability to develop, produce, and deploy safe and effective countermeasures within 100 days.
- Advance Global Health Security
We must work with other countries and private sector partners to reach agreement by the 2021 UN General Assembly on the creation of a catalytic global health security financing mechanism and for its sustainable funding. We also commit to establishing the needed governance, oversight, accountability and transparency for future health security threats. The Biden-Harris Administration is spearheading an effort, building a coalition of public and private partners around the world, to come to consensus and establish and sustainably fund a global health security financing mechanism in 2021. We have also requested at least $250 million through the President’s Fiscal Year 2022 Budget Request to support seed funding for this mechanism this year. We look forward to progress before this year’s United Nations General Assembly, including consensus on the governance and transparency required for future health emergencies. In this regard, the Biden-Harris Administration welcomes the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR) recommendation to establish a Global Health Threats Council at the UN.
And we will go further to Build Back Better:
- Build Resilience to Recover
We will not stop with ending the pandemic: we must also invest in the global recovery from COVID-19. The Biden-Harris Administration strongly supports assisting countries in recovering from the pandemic’s aftershocks. We seek to reorient our development finance tools to strengthen health systems, catalyze infrastructure investment in for low-and middle-income countries and reverse the secondary impacts that have sent millions into poverty and hunger, disrupting and destabilizing education, political, economic, and social systems. We strongly support the effort to recycle Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to further support health needs. We will also maintain our strong commitment to global education and strengthening the resiliency of food systems, including by mitigating the disproportionate disruptions experienced by women and girls.
The United States remains committed to saving lives and ending the COVID-19 pandemic now. We look forward to the adoption of the G7+ action plan this weekend. We call on other countries and private sector partners to support this ambition.
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