“One of the terrible injustices and major impediments in this pandemic has been the exclusive control of critical medical technology,” Mr. Maybarduk said. By working with the Medicines Patent Pool, he said, the Biden administration would be “not only sharing doses, but sharing knowledge, on the view that sharing doses is charity and sharing knowledge is justice.”
Thursday’s gathering will unfold in a very different climate than the first Covid-19 summit, last September. The war in Ukraine is sapping energy and money from donor nations. The global vaccination campaign is stalled. Testing has dropped precipitously around the globe. Covid antiviral pills are now available in the United States, but remain scarce in low- and middle-income nations.
“We remain woefully behind in our efforts to vaccinate the world, with less than 13 percent of people in low-income countries having received two Covid shots,” Gayle Smith, who ran the State Department’s global Covid response under Mr. Biden and is now chief executive of the One Campaign, an advocacy organization, said on Wednesday. She added, “That the U.S. will not come to the table with any funds to offer tomorrow is deeply concerning.”
The summit is being hosted by Belize, Germany, Indonesia and Senegal. Mr. Biden will address the attendees in prerecorded remarks, and Vice President Kamala Harris will be the lead representative for the United States. Global health organizations, philanthropies and drug makers will also participate.
In preparing for the meeting, the senior administration officials said, the White House asked participants to make “important commitments of all types.” Countries including Canada, Korea, Spain and France would make financial commitments, they added. Some low-income nations will commit to accelerating their vaccination campaigns, and some drug makers will agree to consider setting lower prices for treatments.