U.S. President Joe Biden says he’s planning to give surplus COVID-19 vaccines to other countries, including Canada, in the future as his country’s vaccination rollout hits another milestone.
Biden said he spoke to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Wednesday about providing additional vaccine assistance to Canada, but also suggested some of the extra vaccines could go to Central America. He noted that the U.S. doesn’t yet have enough to send at this time, but said the U.S. could provide help down the line.
“We hope to be able to be of some help and value to countries around the world. We talked to our neighbours,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday, acknowledging his phone call with Trudeau.
“We helped a little bit there. We’re going to try to help some more. but there are other countries as well that I’m confident we can help, including in Central America.”
This isn’t the first time the U.S. has offered vaccine help to Canada. In March, the U.S. provided 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine on loan. In other words, Canada will eventually have to return the favour.
Through a bilateral agreement, 20 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine are expected to funnel into Canada from manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the second and third quarters of this year.
The U.S. also gave 2.5 million doses to Mexico.
Biden said the White House is looking at what it can do with vaccines that aren’t currently in use in the U.S. but are being manufactured there.
AstraZeneca, for example, has been approved for use by Health Canada, but not by the U.S. food and Drug Administration.
Biden said he spoke with Trudeau for about half an hour. He described him as someone who was “working hard to take care of his country and deal with this.”
The U.S. is set to meet Biden’s goal of administering 200 million coronavirus doses in his first 100 days in office, with more than 50 per cent of adults at least partially vaccinated.
Just this week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that every American aged 16 years and above is now eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
This is a breaking news story. More information to come.
— with files from the Canadian Press and the Associated Press
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