India Pulled Back Global Vaccine Supply Due To Domestic Virus Surge: US Agency

The USAID administrator said vaccines supply is lacking globally at a time when Delta is raging around the world, but the shortage will send soon as the US has purchased Pfizer's vaccine.

India pulled back its supply of vaccines to the rest of the world after the second wave of pandemic hit the country, resulting in acute global shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, the Biden Administration has informed the lawmakers. "When the Delta variant is raging around the world and supply is lacking globally because the Serum Institute of India pulled back hundreds of millions of vaccines that were supposed to go to COVAX because Europe is still in the throes of the pandemic, hopefully coming out of it now with light at the end of the tunnel," USAID Administrator Samantha Power told a Congressional Committee here. Testifying before a Congressional committee on the annual budget of the agency, Power said that the shortage is going to end soon because the United States has purchased Pfizer's vaccine which will start to come online in August. "COVAX is in the position it's in because India has had to pull back so much supply that had been intended to go for second shots and for health workers. COVAX has found itself in this third quarter in a really difficult pinch," she said.