White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients announced on Wednesday, 17 November that the US will invest billions of dollars in increasing its COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity, Reuters reported.
The Biden administration is reportedly under pressure to boost the supply of vaccines to low-income and underdeveloped nations so that they can minimise the catastrophic consequences of COVID-19.
The objective is to make available annually an extra one billion doses of the vaccine.
Dr. David Kessler, who is responsible for the vaccine rollout for the Biden government, said that the new plan was "about assuring expanded capacity against Covid variants and also preparing for the next pandemic", the New York Times reported.
"The goal, in the case of a future pandemic, a future virus, is to have vaccine capability within six to nine months of identification of that pandemic pathogen, and to have enough vaccines for all Americans."
Zients mentioned that there was a short-term and long-term aspect to the plan.
In the short term, the goal of the new move was to make a large amount of COVID-19 vaccine doses available for global use at affordable rates.
In the long term, the US wants to ensure its domestic manufacturing capacity so that it can quickly make vaccines for future pandemics.
Zients also said on Wednesday, 17 November, that about four fifths of Americans who were 12 or older have been jabbed at least once and that 2.6 million children aged between five and eleven shall get their first jab by the end of the day.
(With inputs from Reuters and New York Times)
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