The U.S. will soon send its unused AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines around the world

The United States will soon begin sharing its entire supply of COVID-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, the White House told The Associated Press on Monday.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has not been granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration yet, but White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said the country doesn't need the supply at this point, anyway, given "the strong portfolio of vaccines" already available in the country. That includes the shots developed by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer and BioNTech.

The Biden administration had previously shared about 4 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine with neighboring Canada and Mexico, but the latest announcement answers calls to expand the strategy further. Per AP, 10 million doses of the vaccine have been produced and are awaiting FDA quality inspection before they can ship out, while 50 million more are in various stages of production and should be good to go by May or June. Read more at The Associated Press.

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