'The U.S. Is Sitting On Tens of Millions of Vaccine Doses the World Needs'

"Tens of millions of doses of the coronavirus vaccine made by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca are sitting idly in American manufacturing facilities," reports the New York Times, "awaiting results from its U.S. clinical trial while countries that have authorized its use beg for access."

schwit1 shares their report:
The fate of those doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine is the subject of an intense debate among White House and federal health officials, with some arguing the administration should let them go abroad where they are desperately needed while others are not ready to relinquish them, according to senior administration officials...

About 30 million doses are currently bottled at AstraZeneca's facility in West Chester, Ohio, which handles "fill-finish," the final phase of the manufacturing process during which the vaccine is placed in vials, one official with knowledge of the stockpile said. Emergent BioSolutions, a company in Maryland that AstraZeneca has contracted to manufacture its vaccine in the United States, has also produced enough vaccine in Baltimore for tens of millions more doses once it is filled into vials and packaged, the official said. But although AstraZeneca's vaccine is already authorized in more than 70 countries, according to a company spokesman, its U.S. clinical trial has not yet reported results, and the company has not applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization.

AstraZeneca has asked the Biden administration to let it loan American doses to the European Union, where it has fallen short of its original supply commitments and where the vaccination campaign has stumbled badly. The administration, for now, has denied the request, one official said...

Johnson & Johnson, which has authorization for its vaccine in the United States but fell behind on its production targets in both the United States and Europe, recently asked the United States to loan 10 million doses to the European Union, but the Biden administration also denied that request, according to American and European officials... The administration has focused on Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine, brokering a deal to have the pharmaceutical giant Merck manufacture and bottle the shot and announcing plans to secure 100 million additional doses... Privately, two senior administration officials said that by helping Johnson & Johnson scale up with the Merck deal, the White House is laying the groundwork for the company to eventually make its vaccine available overseas.

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