The Biden administration announced it will aid India in manufacturing AstraZeneca vaccines by diverting orders for raw materials, but it will not donate doses from the national stockpile.
Senior administration officials told reporters Monday that the federal government will divert an order meant for the United States of raw materials needed to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for public use.
The news comes just days after President Joe Biden spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the devastating COVID-19 surge that has led to a record 16,354 deaths in India in the past week. Modi did not request a donation of AstraZeneca doses already manufactured and stored in the U.S. national stockpile. Rather, Indian government officials will enlist vaccine development laboratories, including the Serum Institute of India, to make the shots.
The U.S. will also help bolster India’s supply of oxygen that healthcare workers must have at the ready for coronavirus patients in respiratory distress.
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The Biden administration has faced pressure to share vaccines with India, where more than 345,000 new cases per day have been confirmed on average over the past week. On Monday, India confirmed 352,991 new cases and 2,812 virus-related deaths, marking the world’s highest daily count for the fifth straight day.
Senior administration officials added that the U.S. is expected to have roughly 16 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine within the next couple of months that could be sent to other countries, provided the vaccine passes a safety review by the FDA. The administration did not elaborate on which countries would get these doses first.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that the White House estimates it will ship out as many as 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the coming months to other countries as the Biden administration expects the country’s vaccine supply will exceed demand by the summer. Supply of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines alone would be enough for every U.S. adult by then, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week.
“Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the U.S. already has and that have been authorized by the FDA and given that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not authorized for use in the U.S., we do not need to use the AstraZeneca vaccine here during the next several months,” White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said.
The temporary recommended pause on Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine lifted on Friday after government health experts concluded the benefits of the shot far outweighed the risk of rare and severe blood clotting. The addition of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been considered to be a saving grace for remote facilities that lack the proper storage capacity for the Moderna and Pfizer shots.
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To date, nearly 141 million people in the U.S., about 54% of the adult population, have received at least one dose of a vaccine. At least 95 million people have been fully vaccinated.
