On June 18, 2022, Mongolia received 302,400 pediatric doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from the United States. With this most recent donation, the total number of vaccine donations from the United States to Mongolia comes to over 1.4 million, including 188,370 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in September 2021 and 899,730 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in October 2021.
Mongolia was one of the few countries that contained the spread of the virus, with no domestic virus carriers until November 2020. Since the beginning of the outbreak, the Mongolian government has taken severe measures to contain the spread of the virus, shutting down places like schools, workplaces, and its international borders. However, from April 2021, the number of weekly new infections skyrocketed to over 4000. By June 2022, over 920,000 confirmed cases and over 2,100 coronavirus-related deaths had been registered in Mongolia. Thanks to the recent vaccine donations, there is hope these numbers will not continue to rise.
Through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States has provided over $8.1 million for Mongolia to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This assistance has been comprehensive, including testing kits, medicine for COVID-19 patients, medical equipment and supplies, personal protective equipment, and training for the healthcare workers.
To end the worldwide pandemic, President Biden pledged to donate 1.2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the world. As of July 5, 2022, the United States has delivered over 559 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, of which over 265 million doses were donated to Indo-Pacific countries. The main recipients of the US COVID-19 vaccines in the Indo-Pacific region are Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Indonesia.
Batjav Naranbat is a Research Intern at East-West Center in Washington. He is a recent graduate of the University of Humanities of Mongolia in International Relations Program.