Ovunc Kutlu
19 February 2021•Update: 19 February 2021
ANKARA
The US is making a $2 billion pledge to global initiative COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) with a pledge of an additional $2 billion, according to President Joe Biden.
"We must cooperate if we are going to defeat COVID-19 everywhere," Biden said at an address to the Munich Security Conference, first speech to world leaders since taking office last month.
"We must simultaneously work to finally finance health security, strengthen global health systems, and create early warning systems [to] prevent, detect and respond to future biological threats, because they will keep coming," said Biden.
The US president stressed the world needs to work together to strengthen the World Health Organization (WHO), and the world needs a UN system focused on biological threats that can take quick action.
American biotech firm Novavax also announced Thursday it made an agreement with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to supply 1.1 billion doses to COVAX.
The US, the worst-hit country by COVID-19, has registered almost 28 million cases and over 493,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Global deaths stood at over 2.4 million with more than 110 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic.
