U.S. Has Deal to Send J.&J. Covid Vaccine to Conflict Zones, Blinken Says

Politics|Blinken says the U.S. has a woody to nonstop Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to struggle zones.

• Nov. 10, 2021, 10:33 a.m. ET

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said connected Wednesday that the United States had negotiated a woody to vessel further doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine overseas, to assistance radical surviving successful struggle zones.

Speaking astatine a gathering with his overseas counterparts, Mr. Blinken stressed the request to widen vaccine entree to radical surviving successful areas unreachable by government-run programs. The latest inaugural is being carried retired via Covax, the planetary vaccine-sharing program; Mr. Blinken did not specify a fig of doses.

“We request to guarantee that radical who cannot beryllium reached by authorities vaccination campaigns aren’t near retired of our efforts,” Mr. Blinken said. “They request to beryllium protected, too.”

President Biden has pledged more than a cardinal vaccine doses to nonstop abroad, but helium has been nether unit to thin connected pharmaceutical manufacturers, who person resisted sharing their technology with vaccine makers successful lower-income countries.

Use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine successful the United States has not been arsenic precocious arsenic that of the Pfizer-BioNTech oregon Moderna vaccines. Johnson & Johnson doses person besides been distributed overseas done the Covax programme successful an effort to bolster immunity successful poorer countries, including galore successful Africa.

Many of those person been provided done a akin deal reached successful May, nether which Johnson & Johnson agreed to merchantability astir 200 cardinal doses to Covax astatine a discounted rate.

Worldwide, astir 75 percent of shots that person gone into arms have been administered successful high- and upper-middle-income countries, according to the Our World successful Data task astatine the University of Oxford. Only 0.6 percent of doses person been administered successful low-income countries.

Mr. Blinken besides announced the motorboat of a caller online tracker that would compile planetary information connected vaccination and ICU rates, drafting connected assistance from the World Health Organization.

He described the request to ramp up planetary vaccine organisation arsenic the “current emergency,” acknowledging the ongoing challenges Covax has faced with delays and mediocre coordination.