One billion vaccine doses against Covid-19 are to be made available to the world by the G7 states for the will of summit host Boris Johnson.

His country itself will donate surplus vaccine doses to the global Covax initiative, writes the British Prime Minister in a guest post for the FAZ. He received support from American President Joe Biden, who announced on Thursday evening that the United States would donate 500 million vaccine doses to poorer countries.

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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    Hendrik Kafsack

    Business correspondent in Brussels.

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      Werner Mussler

      Business correspondent in Brussels.

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        Johannes Ritter

        Correspondent for politics and business in Switzerland.

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          Majid Sattar

          Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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            The new vaccine commitments complement and clarify earlier figures.

            At the “World Health Summit” of the largest industrialized and emerging countries (G 20) in May, the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson promised deliveries of 1.3 billion vaccine doses this year and a further billion doses to developing countries in the coming year.

            At the time, Pfizer announced the delivery of one billion doses each in 2021 and 2022 directly to poorer and very poor countries and to Covax.

            Johnson & Johnson promised 200 million cans for this year, Moderna just under 100 million cans.

            The EU had announced that it would provide 100 million doses of the vaccine contingent it had already ordered for developing countries.

            According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the EU plans to donate another 100 million cans.

            It is considering not exercising an option to purchase another 100 million cans from Johnson & Johnson and "freeing up" the order for developing countries if they are interested, writes Reuters.

            1.3 billion cans for their own market

            The Covax program launched in April 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the global vaccine alliance Gavi is intended to ensure a fairer distribution of vaccines. The initiative made slow progress at first. The majority of vaccines have so far gone to the rich industrialized countries. But a few days ago Covax raised an additional $ 2.4 billion at a virtual donor conference. This filled the pot for the procurement of vaccines to a total of 9.6 billion dollars. Covax says it is now able to secure 1.8 billion cans and deliver them to poorer countries by the beginning of 2022. The amount is enough to vaccinate almost 30 percent of the adult population there.

            In addition to the western states, China, among others, is also offering its aid. The country puts its vaccine exports to date, i.e. vaccines donated and sold, at more than 350 million doses. The consulting firm Bridge, which verifies deliveries from China through independent sources, comes to 262 million cans, of which 22 million were donated. Supply contracts have already been concluded for a further 480 million cans. The two leading Chinese manufacturers say they have built up production capacities for a total of five billion cans per year. In addition, they have signed license agreements for production in third countries.

            The 500 million vaccine doses that Washington buys from the Pfizer Group as a donation for foreign countries contrasts with a total of 1.3 billion that the American government has bought or ordered for its own market: including 300 million vaccine doses from Pfizer-BioNTech, 200 million from Johnson & Johnson, 300 million from Moderna, 300 million from AstraZeneca, 100 million from Novavax and 100 million from Sanofi.