President Joe Biden is not considering the request of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the U.S. share its COVID-19 vaccine supply with its southern neighbor, according to Reuters Tuesday, citing White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
The Biden administration said that its main focus is on getting its own people vaccinated against a disease that has claimed the lives of more than half a million Americans.
"The administration's focus is on ensuring that every American is immunized. And once we accomplish that goal, we are happy to discuss further steps," Reuters quoted the press secretary as saying during a White House media briefing.
Biden and Obrador are set to meet online Monday afternoon for a summit that Psaki said will "reaffirm the enduring partnership" between the two sides.
Biden told journalists that the two heads of state would discuss the issue during the meeting. But an official statement released following the meeting made no mention about the vaccine's distribution.
Obrador, commonly referred to as AMLO, has asked wealthy nations to improve poorer countries' access to the vaccines and has called the current distribution system "totally unfair."
Mexico's vaccination campaign has been delayed by slow shipments, despite deals with international pharmaceutical companies to buy doses for its 126 million people.
Biden has predicted the U.S. will have enough supply by late July to immunize all its people. U.S. health authorities have so far given nearly 77 million doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Mexico, for its part, has inoculated around 2.5 million people of its people so far, enough for roughly 1% of its population, data obtained by Reuters show.
