Turning its back on the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (Covax), a global effort to develop and distribute a coronavirus vaccine that is being led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Trump administration has claimed that it wouldn’t want to be “constrained” by pressures from multilateral organizations.
More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and distribute them to the most high-risk segment of each population.
Source: Bend Bulletin
Despite standing amongst the worst-hit countries in the world, the USA has decided to step away from the global effort to develop, manufacture, and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine. The decision was based on the fact that the participation and spearheading of the World Health Organisation might cause a hindrance to the course of the pandemic and the country’s role in health diplomacy.
“The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China,” said Judd Deere, a spokesman for the White House.
Source: Asianlite
Led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, is being backed by Japan, Germany, and the European Commission. Initially favored by some members of the US Federal government, the United States will no longer participate in the initiative since the White House does not want to work with the WHO. Strong indignation for the WHO came after President Donald Trump criticized the organization over an allegedly “China-centric” response to the pandemic.
Unfortunately, this move has the capacity of putting America in a fix, since it has possibly eliminated the chance to secure doses from a pool of promising vaccine candidates – a potentially risky strategy in times like these. Keeping this fact in mind, a few members of the administration were wary of stepping out of the global effort, in fears that the nation would be left alone in case there are developments in a promising vaccine. These fears were overruled by a belief that the United States has enough coronavirus vaccine candidates in advanced clinical trials that it can go it alone.
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