Johnson expects 1b dose pledge
CARBIS BAY: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expects the Group of Seven to agree to donate 1 billion Covid19 vaccine doses to poorer countries during its summit today, and help inoculate the world by the end of next year.
Just hours after US 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 threeday 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 Covid19 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 today, according to excerpts of the announcement released by his office.
Covid19 has killed about 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.
While scientists have brought vaccines to market at high speeds — Britain has given a first dose to 77% of its adult population and the US 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 leaders needed to go further.
‘‘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.
Of the 100 million British shots, 80 million will go to the Covax
programme led by the World Health Organisation 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 OxfordAstraZeneca 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. — Reuters