“We are disheartened that, in the middle of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, one of the compromises made in the agreement on the Build Back Better Act was to cut out financing for future pandemic preparedness. While we welcome the needed US$1.3 billion to support expanded global vaccine production capacity and research on infectious diseases, the bill leaves out critical elements of President Biden’s American Pandemic Preparedness Plan, including the US$600 million requested to stand up a new multilateral fund to bolster global preparedness for future pandemics.

We represent dozens of organizations who have been calling for U.S. global leadership to establish such a fund to address pandemic threats. Establishing this fund is a long overdue step  toward addressing the years of chronic underinvestment that left America and the world vulnerable to COVID-19. There is strong bipartisan support for the fund from both the House and the Senate and from leading global finance and health experts, who have urged that the fund be set up swiftly and capitalized at US$10 billion per year over the next five years. While the US$600 million U.S. contribution to the fund that was included in the Biden Administration’s Pandemic Preparedness Plan represents only a fraction of the global need, it is an urgent first step toward helping prevent another devastating pandemic from happening again.

Omitting this critical funding from the bill will signal a return to complacency in the face of one of the most looming threats to our national and global security. And it will signal to other countries that President Biden’s signature initiative to establish a new fund to fight pandemics  — which he touted to world leaders at the Global COVID-19 Summit just one month ago as a key piece of his plan to Build Back Better — is not backed by any serious financial commitment or urgency from the United States. The White House and Congress should urgently agree to ensure the US$600 million for the multilateral fund is included in the Act before final passage and then urge other countries to join the U.S. and contribute their fair share.”