The coronavirus vaccine effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) will not be working with the U.S., the White House said Tuesday.

WHO is leading in the development and distribution of coronavirus vaccines, but the U.S. believes multilateral groups will constrain it.

First reported by The Washington Post, this decision follows the White House's decision to pull the U.S. out of the WHO in early July. Trump claims the WHO is heavily influenced by China.

Some nations chose to work directly in securing supplies of coronavirus vaccines, while others pooled efforts to ensure success against the disease. The COVID-19 Global Access Facility, or COVAX, is set up by more than 150 countries.

That effort will allow nations to take advantage of a portfolio of potential vaccines to ensure that their citizens are quickly covered by whichever ones will be found effective.

Even governments having dealt with individual vaccine makers can benefit from joining COVAX, WHO said in an ABC article. Backup vaccines can be available to them if their own drug makers are unsuccessful.

U.S. Decision Baffles Health Experts

According to The Hill, choosing to opt-out of COVAX can be "a gamble" for the White House. It could mean the U.S. will be left behind if another country developed the first viable vaccine candidate.

Almost every nation in the world had been in initial talks on the COVAX project involving the WHO, the European Union, Germany, Japan, and several major nongovernmental organizations.

The COVAX plan, co-led with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, was of interest to some members of the White House. It was also backed by traditional allies of the U.S. like Japan, Germany, and the European Commission.

Some health and medicine professors have also found this decision troubling.

Georgetown University professor, Lawrence Gostin, said the U.S. is "taking a huge gamble" by this strategy. So did Kendall Hoyt for Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, who said the move was like opting out of an insurance policy.

For Hoyt, the U.S. could have taken part in COVAX and pursued bilateral deals with drug companies. This act would increase the odds of them having the first safe vaccine.

U.S. in COVAX Could Affect Other Nations Too

The decision that the U.S. made will also shape what happens in other parts of the world. The idea behind COVAX is to discourage hoarding and to focus on vaccinating high-risk people in every country first.

Experts said this kind of strategy could lead to better health outcomes and lower costs.

According to Forbes, the European Commission confirmed Monday that it would contribute 400 million euros ($478 million) to COVAX, and Germany has also joined the pact, said the WHO.

There have been dozens of experimental coronavirus vaccines, and a dozen of them have gone through human testing. It is the last and biggest hurdle in the fight against COVID-19, and, right now, they are looking for proof that they really work.

On Monday, Astra Zeneca announced Monday that its vaccine candidate had entered the last testing stage in the U.S. They said their study would involve up to 30,000 adults from various racial-ethnic and geographic groups.

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