1 million US COVID-19 vaccine doses due in Malaysia on Jul 5

WASHINGTON: One million donated doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech will arrive in Malaysia on Monday (Jul 5), White House officials said, with plans for more shipments to Southeast Asia soon.

The shipment is from an initial batch of 80 million United States-made vaccine doses that the Biden administration pledged last month to share globally amid concern about the disparity in vaccination rates between advanced and developing countries.

Washington has been competing with China to deepen geopolitical clout through so-called "vaccine diplomacy", although it says it is not sharing vaccines to secure favours or extract concessions, but to save lives and end the pandemic.

READ: US to ship 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Indonesia 'as soon as possible'

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Edgard Kagan, senior director for East Asia at the White House National Security Council, told Reuters that the US was sharing "safe and effective vaccines" with Malaysia in a moment of need and "will be making further shipments to the region in the near future".

Another official said that the US was "working as fast as possible to deliver additional vaccines across Southeast Asia".

The US has already announced plans to provide vaccines to the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia.

On Friday, it said it would ship 4 million doses of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine to Indonesia as soon as possible via the COVAX global vaccine sharing program as that country battles a surge of cases.

As well as the 80 million-dose pledge, Washington has said it will purchase 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to distribute to the African Union and 92 low- and lower-to-middle-income countries.

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