The Trump administration on Tuesday said that it will not join in the global effort to produce COVID-19 vaccine, a process which is co-led by the World Health Organisation (WHO). At present, more than 170 countries are expected to participate in the COVID -19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute Coronavirus vaccine. But the US does not wish to be a part of this partly because of the involvement of WHO in the process. In the aftermath of the administration’s decision to pull out of WHO in early July and Trump’s criticism of WHO as “China-centric” response to pandemic have led to the decision of the White House to not join the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, co-led by WHO.
“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.
Traditional U.S. allies, including Japan, Germany and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union are part of the efforts and are setting up COVAX facility to ensure speed vaccine development and save the citizens across the world from this pandemic.
