|
 Just hours after U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to supercharge the
battle against the coronavirus with a donation of 500 million Pfizer
shots, Johnson said Britain would give at least 100 million surplus
vaccines to the poorest nations.
Johnson has already called on G7 leaders to commit to vaccinate the
entire world by the end of 2022 and the group is expected to pledge
1 billion doses during its three-day summit in the English seaside
resort of Carbis Bay.
Some campaign groups condemned the plan as a drop in the ocean, with
Oxfam estimating that nearly 4 billion people will depend for
vaccines on COVAX, the programme that distributes COVID-19 shots to
low and middle income countries.
"As a result of the success of the UK's vaccine programme we are now
in a position to share some of our surplus doses with those who need
them," Johnson will say on Friday, according to excerpts of the
announcement released by his office.
"In doing so we will take a massive step towards beating this
pandemic for good."
COVID-19 has killed around 3.9 million people and ripped through the
global economy, with infections reported in more than 210 countries
and territories since the first cases were identified in China in
December 2019.
GLOBAL EFFORT
While scientists have brought vaccines to market at breakneck speeds
- Britain has given a first dose to 77% of its adult population and
the United States 64% - they say the pandemic will only end once all
countries have been vaccinated.
With a global population nearing 8 billion and most people needing
two doses, if not booster shots to tackle variants as well,
campaigners said the commitments marked a start but that world
leaders needed to go much further, and much faster.
[to top of second column] |
 "If the best G7 leaders can
manage is to donate 1 billion vaccine doses then
this summit will have been a failure," Oxfam's
health policy manager Anna Marriott said, adding
that the world would need 11 billion doses to
end the pandemic.
Oxfam also called on G7 leaders to support a
waiver on the intellectual property behind the
vaccines.
"The lives of millions of people in developing
countries should never be dependent on the
goodwill of rich nations and profit-hungry
pharmaceutical corporations," Marriott said.
Of the 100 million British shots, 80 million will go to the COVAX
programme led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the rest
will be shared bilaterally with countries in need.
Johnson echoed Biden in calling on his fellow leaders to make
similar pledges and for pharmaceutical companies to adopt the
Oxford-AstraZeneca model of providing vaccines at cost for the
duration of the pandemic.
Leaving poorer countries to deal with the pandemic alone risks
allowing the virus to further mutate and evade vaccines. Charities
have also said that logistical support will be needed to help
administer large numbers of vaccines in poorer countries.
The British doses will be drawn from the stock it has already
procured for its domestic programme, and will come from suppliers
Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen, Moderna and others.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Grant
McCool and Alex Richardson)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content |
