US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the United States plans to order another 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson.
The president made the announcement after a White House meeting with Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky and Merck CEO Ken Frazier - one week after the two companies struck a deal for Merck to produce millions of doses of Johnson & Johnson's vaccine.
The planned purchase would bring the country's total vaccine order to 800 million doses, the Xinhua news reported. "On Saturday, we hit a record of 2.9 million vaccinations in one day in America," Biden said.
Biden said last week the US would have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for every adult American by the end of May, which would dramatically accelerate his timeline previously set for the end of July. There are three Covid-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use in the US.
The USFDA authorised the one developed by American drugmaker Pfizer in partnership with German company BioNTech, and another by American drugmaker Moderna, in December last year. Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use on February 27. It is the first single-dose vaccine authorized in the US.
Over 127 million vaccine doses have been distributed across the US as of Wednesday, and more than 95 million doses have been administered, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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