The Trump administration said today at white House that it will not associate with a global effort to develop and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine as it does not want to be restricted by multilateral groups like the World Health Organization that are corrupt. However, the administration said it will continue to engage international partners.
Reportedly Donald Trump’s decision was succeeded by the White House’s decision in early July to delist the United States out of the WHO. Trump slams WHO’s concerns by saying it is too focused on China and issuing bad advice.
On Monday, World Health Organization officials stated escalating too quickly to develop a vaccine by US could widely pose risks. WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said WHO’s approach would be to fetch a full set of data, which is then ascertained for the pre-qualification of vaccines.
Experts believe that by not complying with the safety measures entailed by WHO, US will not only put the lives of it’s own countrymen at stake but also that of international partners who tied up to avail the vaccine. India’s Serum Institute is associated with Oxford for receiving the covid-19 vaccine for bulk production from US apart from UK. This now raises the doubt, implying that Trump’s non-cooperation with WHO could affect India in availing the safe vaccine.