US to provide an additional $580 million in international COVID aid

By AFP 21 December 2021, 2:29 pm

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Airport workers transport a shipment of COVID-19 vaccines from the Covax global vaccination program, at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana on February 24, 2021. (Nipah Dennis / AFP)

The United States will give $580 million in additional aid to international organizations to fight Covid-19 in the face of surging Omicron cases, says US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The rapid spread of the Omicron variant reinforces that we must all continue to accelerate our efforts to end this pandemic and that none of us are safe until all of us are safe,” Blinken says. “The world is at a critical point in our global response to this virus.”

Blinken says he was scheduled to hold a meeting later today with his counterparts from other countries to coordinate the international response to the new variant, which has already become the dominant strain in the United States.

“I call on my counterparts to fulfill and bolster their commitments in fighting the pandemic. We must work together, and we must act quickly,” he says.

The additional funds to seven multilateral agencies bring overall US assistance to $19.6 billion, according to the State Department.