By Andrea Hargraves 
The United States announced, Friday, that it is preparing to send more than 8 million doses of the vaccine against Covid-19 to the Philippines and Bangladesh, in the latest aid delivery to a world struggling to control the epidemic.
A White House official, who asked not to be identified, said five shipments, totaling 5,575,050 doses, will go to the Philippines next week. He said another 2508,480 doses will reach Bangladesh early next week.
The vaccines, all from the Pfizer-BioNTech lab, will be donated through the Covax Program, led by the World Health Organization. The official said that the government “recognizes that ending this epidemic requires eliminating it all over the world,” noting that US donations represent “the largest purchase and donation of vaccines made by a single country.”
Bangladesh, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, has received millions of doses of US vaccines, including 2.5 million sent last week. According to the AFP database, about 10% of that country’s population, numbering around 170 million, has been fully immunized.
The Philippines has recorded more than 2.5 million infections, including more than 38,000 deaths. Just over a quarter of the adult population has been immunized. Officials warn that the country’s economy could take more than a decade to recover from the impact of the pandemic, which has left millions of people out of work.