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PARIS — France will give 500,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to poorer countries by June, an Elysée adviser said Tuesday.
In mid-February, French President Emmanuel Macron urged the leaders of the six other wealthiest nations that make up the G7 to give between 3 to 5 percent of their vaccine doses to poorer countries. At the time his advisers couldn’t say how many doses the 5 percent would amount to.
“What matters to the president is that the mechanism be set up quickly because there’s a need for speed, and that’s what France will do by [giving] 500,000 doses by June, we will keep you updated as the doses are deployed,” the official said.
French pharmaceutical and biotech companies have yet to produce a vaccine of their own, and France has suffered from delivery delays from production sites in Europe and the U.S., like most EU member states, but Macron has been a prime advocate of global solidarity when it comes to access to the vaccine and diagnostics.
The amount of doses France is planning on giving is a minute portion of the total amount of doses it is set to receive. So far it has received more than 7 million doses, and weekly deliveries are expected to increase significantly starting in April.
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