A scathing new report from PrEP4All reveals that the Biden Administration has yet to use $16 billion allocated by Congress to vaccinate the world, and end the pandemic. The report, “Playing Fiddle While the World Burns,” details how the United States can build enough vaccine manufacturing capacity to vaccinate the entire world for less than we spend on the COVID-19 response daily.

“If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that viruses know no borders, and any successful public health response requires a global solution,” noted the report’s author James Krellenstein, PrEP4All Co-Founder and Managing Director. “We must not allow ourselves to play fiddle while the world burns. Unequal access to vaccines threatens lives everywhere. So long as COVID-19 spreads worldwide, even worse variants than Delta will emerge. As we make clear in our report, it is imperative that the Biden Administration immediately scale up vaccine production for the billions of people who don’t have access. The health of our nation and the world depends on it.”

“With many countries unlikely to have widespread access to vaccines until 2023, continued transmission of COVID-19 increases the risk of even worse variants than Delta that undermine the ability of even our most potent vaccines,”  added Krellenstein XXX, PrEP4All. “Not only is the failure to speed production of the vaccine a profound humanitarian disaster, but it’s also a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. We implore the Biden Administration to use the $16 billion allocated by Congress to go much further than it already has to ramp up the global supply of the vaccine that will stop more-dangerous variants and ultimately end this pandemic.”

Production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines remains woefully insufficient to meet global vaccine demand, precluding vaccine access to many countries until 2023 or later. Also of deep concern is that the global vaccine supply is likely to deteriorate if we need to manufacture new versions of existing vaccines resistant to new viral variants or need to boost previously vaccinated individuals.

As is documented in the report, the Biden Administration has thus far spent only approximately $145 million out of $16 billion allocated by Congress for vaccine manufacturing and other COVID-19 medical countermeasures. The Administration’s apparent failure to continue adequate investment in scaling up production is inexplicable given the current crisis in global vaccine access. According to the report, unspent congressional appropriations are more than sufficient to build mRNA vaccine production capacity in 6 months, capable of vaccinating the entire world in a single year.