Washington – The United States will release four million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine to its neighbours, Canada and Mexico, the White House has said.
The plan would mark the first time the US has directly supplied vaccines to another country.
It comes as China has moved aggressively to export its vaccines in what is seen as an effort in “vaccine diplomacy”.
Canada and Mexico have approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab, but the US has not.
However, the US has a stockpile of the vaccine. Announcing the plan to distribute doses on Thursday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that 2.5 million of the US’ seven million jabs will go to Mexico and 1.5 million of which will be given to Canada.
Under the agreement, the countries must return any excess doses to the US.
President Joe Biden expressed his intention last week “to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first”.
“If we have a surplus, we’re going to share it with the rest of the world,” he said.
More than 12 per cent of Americans have now been vaccinated, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a total of over 115 million doses of the three vaccines approved in the US have been administered.
Biden has set May 1 as the date for making anyone over the age of 16 eligible to receive a jab. (BBC)
