Statement: To End the Pandemic, White House Must Make Major Investments in Global Vaccine Manufacturing
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The White House today announced it will spend almost $3 billion to shore up domestic manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines. Public Citizen has called for a $25 billion investment to retrofit facilities around the world and make eight billion doses of mRNA vaccine within one year. Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, issued the following statement:
“Major investments in urgent vaccine manufacturing are desperately needed, and after today’s announcement, still far more is needed to make the billions of doses lacking to end the pandemic.
“We need concrete White House commitments to provide vaccines to the billions of people globally still awaiting their first dose. We need White House targets for dose production. We need White House commitments to share vaccine knowledge and recipes with the world and stand up regional production hubs.”