Boris: It’s humanity against the virus

London, May 4: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Covid-19 survivor, opened a virtual global conference on Covid19 on Monday by calling on all countries to step up their efforts and work together on fighting the virus pandemic, the “most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes”. The Covid-19 Global Response International Pledging Conference was cohosted by the UK and eight other countries and organisations including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and the European Commission.

At the conference, Johnson confirmed the UK’s pledge of £388 million aid funding for research into vaccines, tests and treatments — part of a larger £744 million existing UK aid commitment to help end the pandemic and support the global economy. This includes

£250 million for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop vaccines against

Covid-19 — the biggest such donation to the fund by any country. “To win this battle, we must work together to build an impregnable shield around all our people, and that can only be achieved by developing and mass producing a vaccine,” said 55-year-old Johnson, who returned to work at 10 Downing Street after his recovery last week. “The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed. The race to discover the vaccine to defeat this virus is not a competition between countries, but the most urgent shared endeavour of our lifetimes. It’s humanity against the virus — we are in this together, and together we’ll prevail,” he said.