Washington: US President Joe Biden on Thursday announced plans to allocate an additional 75 percent of the country's COVID-19 vaccine doses to the United Nations-supported 'Covax' initiative.
Under this, about 19 million doses will be allocated for South and Southeast Asia as well as Africa as the first instalment of an additional 25 million doses.
US Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and three other world leaders in this regard and told them that America will share 25 million doses of anti-Covid-19 vaccine to the countries concerned.
President Biden elaborated in a statement how the US would allocate 25 million vaccines.
Biden said, "At least 75 percent of the doses -- about 19 million doses -- will be shared through the 'Covax' initiative. In this, six million doses will be given to Latin America and the Caribbean region, 7 million to South and South-East Asia and about five million to Africa.
Biden said, "The remaining six million doses will be given directly to countries where cases of infection have increased, which are in crisis. In this, the US will give vaccines to its partners and neighbours including Canada, Mexico, India and the Republic of Korea.
For some time, there has been increasing pressure on the Biden administration to send additional doses to countries like India where there is a vaccine shortage.
"We've already shared more than 4 million doses with Canada and Mexico, and last month I announced that the United States would share 80 million doses with the world by the end of June," Joe Biden said.
He said that strong US leadership is essential to end the pandemic and improve global health security.
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