The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 19 power targeting U.S. personnel. How- ever, this leaves open the possibility that a foreign power could be responsible for “several dozen” cases that cannot be attributed to medical conditions or other factors, the official said. In a letter sent to all State Depart- ment employees later that day, Secretary Blinken acknowledged the intelligence community’s interim assessment and added: “These findings do not call into question the fact that our colleagues are reporting real experiences and are suffering real symptoms. We are going to continue to bring all of our resources to bear in learning more about these incidents, and there will be additional reports to follow.” USAID Launches New Vaccine Initiative I n the September 2021 edition of Talk- ing Points, we reported on the Biden administration’s efforts to get COVID-19 vaccine shots into the arms of everyone, everywhere. As of Jan. 11, the U.S. govern- ment had donated 373 million vaccine doses to more than 110 countries—nearly a third of the administration’s 1.2-billion- dose target by the end of 2022. To accelerate progress toward that goal, on Dec. 6 USAID Administrator Samantha Power unveiled a new whole-of-government effort, the Initia- tive for Global Vaccine Access (Global VAX), during a meeting of international development partners she had convened to discuss the next phase of actions to combat the pandemic. Global VAX concentrates on identi- fying and overcoming access barriers, giving priority to scaling up support to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It calls on all countries to enhance access to global COVID-19 vaccines, identify local barriers to vaccination and move more swiftly to overcome them in real time, leveraging existing development and public health platforms. This $400 million initiative, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, comes on top of the $1.3 billion the federal government has already spent for vac- cine readiness. The funds fall into three categories: $315 million to support