The movement comes as the US struggles with its own shortcomings.
President Joe Biden plans to announce on Friday that the United States will contribute $ 2 billion to a UN-backed program that aims to distribute COVID-19 vaccine doses to people in the world’s poorest countries, according to senior Biden officials.
Congress already allocated the money in December for the US Agency for International Development to provide Gavi, an international vaccine distribution alliance. Congress has given a total of $ 4 billion, and officials have said the United States will give the rest to Gavi this year and 2022.
The move, which the White House said Biden plans to announce during a virtual meeting of Group of Seven leaders, comes as the United States struggles with not yet having enough doses to vaccinate its own population, though the situation in poorer countries is much worse.
To date, 10 countries have administered 75% of all COVID-19 vaccines, while more than 130 countries have not yet received a single dose, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Many countries are unable to compete with the richest, such as the US, to buy the limited quantities of vaccine doses available from manufacturers. Together with the World Health Organization and the Coalition Foundation for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, Gavi is running a global vaccination initiative called COVAX, which aims to address this disparity by distributing doses more equitably.
Even though then-President Donald Trump signed a $ 4 billion Gavi bill in December, he previously refused to support COVAX, and his administration also moved to sever ties with the World Organization. of Health.
Biden has dramatically reversed this approach, keeping the US in the WHO and making the fight against the global COVID-19 pandemic a national security priority.
But ending the global outbreak has proved complicated, with limited vaccine doses available.
The United States has so far purchased 600 million doses of vaccine, but does not intend to offer them to any other country until – as Biden said in a January 21 memorandum – “there is a sufficient quantity in the United States.”
A senior government official said on Thursday that “this commitment to COVAX has no impact on the vaccination program in the United States.”
“Although we are not able to share vaccine doses at this time, while we are focused on U.S. vaccinations and obtaining gunfire,” the official said, “we are working hard to support COVAX, to strengthen global vaccination throughout world and setting the deadline for when we will have a sufficient amount in the United States and we will be able to donate excess vaccines. “
Meanwhile, China and Russia have donated doses of their homemade COVID-19 vaccines to partners and developing countries as a form of “vaccine diplomacy”. The United States has not yet followed suit.
Administration officials have argued that vaccinating people abroad protects the health of Americans domestically.
“Lowering the burden of disease lowers the risk for everyone, including Americans,” the official said. It also reduces the risk of variants, such as those we see now. So it is extremely important to increase vaccination globally, while, of course, we give priority to vaccinations here at home.
The official said the first $ 2 billion tranche would be donated “in a few days to weeks” and “ideally by the end of this month.” Of the additional $ 2 billion, the U.S. intends to contribute from the first $ 500 million “fast enough” to “stimulate some of these initial doses that will be there,” but at least initially intends to retain the rest to encourage other countries to make their own promises, the official said.
“This pandemic will not end unless we end it globally,” the official added.
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan contributed to the reporting.