US says it will not join global effort to find COVID-19 vaccine
The administration of United States President Donald Trump has said it will not work with an international cooperative effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine, because it does not want to be constrained by multilateral groups like the World Health Organization (WHO).
(Al Jazeera) – The decision to go it alone, first reported by The Washington Post, follows the White House’s decision in early July to pull the US out of the WHO. Trump claims the WHO is in need of reform and is heavily influenced by China.
Some nations have worked directly to secure vaccine supplies, but others are pooling efforts to ensure success against a disease that has no geographical boundaries. More than 150 countries are setting up the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX.
That cooperative effort, linked with the WHO, would allow nations to take advantage of a portfolio of potential vaccines to ensure their citizens are quickly covered by whichever ones are deemed effective.
