Speeches Shim
Last updated: September 26, 2022
Today, Administrator Samantha Power spoke with Dr. Martin Fitchet, Global Head of Global Public Health and other executives at Johnson & Johnson (J&J). Administrator Power thanked Dr. Fitchet for J&J’s contributions to the global COVID-19 response.
Thimphu, Bhutan: As part of President Biden’s commitment to donate COVID-19 vaccine doses to countries around the world, the U.S. government has delivered 33,600 doses of the Pfizer pediatric COVID-19 vaccine to Bhutan, in partnership with COVAX and the Bhutan Foundation. These safe and effective pediatric vaccine doses delivered today will protect the lives of children in Bhutan and help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Yesterday, USAID convened a meeting of senior health officials from donor and partner countries, and top COVID-19 experts from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, Africa CDC, and COVAX to discuss the COVID-19 Global Action Plan Line of Effort 1 to get shots in arms. Executive Director of USAID’s COVID-19 Task Force Jeremy Konyndyk chaired the meeting.
On May 31, U.S. Embassy in the Philippines Chargé d’Affaires (CDA) ad interim Heather Variava visited Zamboanga City to deliver COVID-19 assistance and reaffirm the U.S. government’s commitment to broader security and sustainable peace in Mindanao.
In March, the Administration requested $22.5 billion in additional COVID-19 response funding, including $5 billion to support the immediate needs of the global COVID-19 response. This global funding would enable a significant expansion of our Global VAX surge efforts to another 20 to 25 countries and other global COVID-19 vaccination priorities, including the rollout of boosters and pediatric doses. With more than 30 countries qualifying as severely undervaccinated, it remains critical to expand the initiative beyond the 11 surge countries we currently support. This request will also enable us to shrink the severe gaps in global access to testing, oxygen capacity, and antiviral treatments—enabling lifesaving services for more than 100 million people—as well as enhanced monitoring of potential or emerging variants.
Failure to continue our supplemental global funding would abdicate U.S. leadership even as the People’s Republic of China continues its transactional approach to pandemic response and global health; it would weaken health systems that are crucial to fighting this and future pandemics; and it would amount to a surrender to the inevitability of dangerous new variants. Failing to provide supplemental global funding would also jeopardize our long-term baseline pandemic preparedness, global health, and health security investments. In sum: it would be a geopolitical, ethical, health security, and economic mistake of historic proportions.
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