gettyKey FactsThe United States will pitch in an initial $2 billion to the COVAX global vaccination campaign immediately, allowing the initiative to buy up vaccine doses and ship them to nearly 100 developing countries, the White House confirmed to Forbes. Biden plans to offer another $2 billion over the next two years, part of an effort to push other wealthier countries to donate to the program. That’s how many doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine COVAX is aiming to distribute to poorer countries this year, starting later this month. Wealthy countries bought up a disproportionate share of available doses last year, and the WHO said Thursday that just 10 countries have administered 75% of the world’s vaccine doses so far, whereas 130 countries haven’t distributed any shots at all. COVAX was formed last year to help stem this problem, pooling resources from wealthy nations to buy doses for resource-strapped developing countries.

Source: Forbes February 18, 2021 23:26 UTC