France plans to double the number of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine it will donate to poor countries to 120 million doses. French President Emmanuel Macron made that promise on Saturday (25/9), in a video broadcast shown during the Global Citizen concert in Paris.
“The injustice that exists is that on other continents, obviously, vaccination is too late,” he said. “We have to move faster, stronger.”
“France promised to double the number of donated doses,” he added. “We will increase it from 60 million to 120 million doses.”
That figure is more than the number of doses of the vaccine that has been given in France itself, he said.
On Wednesday (22/9), the US announced it would double its donation of vaccine doses, bringing the total to 1.1 billion doses.
US President Joe Biden described the pandemic as a “crisis in which everyone intervenes,” adding that “we need other high-income countries to realize their own ambitions.”
The European Union has committed to distributing 500 million doses of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a video broadcast at the United Nations on Tuesday (21/9), pledged a total of two billion doses by the end of this year, repeating the figures that Chinese authorities had already provided. [rd/ft]
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