The Biden administration is planning to send 60 million doses of AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine to other countries over the next few months. While the vaccine has not been authorized for use in the United States, it has been approved by health officials in the European Union and several other countries.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that shipping the doses overseas will not impact efforts to vaccinate people in the United States.
"Given that AstraZeneca is not authorized for use in the United States, we do not need to use AstraZeneca in our fight against COVID over the next few months," Psaki said.
The U.S. currently has about 10 million doses sitting in storage, waiting for the Food and Drug Administration and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to decide if it should be granted an emergency use authorization. It will be several weeks before the U.S. begins shipping the vials because the FDA is still conducting a safety review of the vaccine.
Psaki did not say which countries would receive the vaccines, though the U.S. has already agreed to send four million doses to Mexico and Canada.
The U.S. expects to receive an additional 50 million doses in May and June.
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