Boris Johnson tells G7 summit ‘whole world’ must be vaccinated

The PM has pledged to donate the majority of the UK’s surplus vaccines to poorer nations
AP
Luke O'Reilly19 February 2021

Boris Johnson has told the G7 there is “no point” in vaccinating individual nations if the "whole world" does not receive the jab.

It came after the Prime Minister pledged to donate the majority of the UK’s surplus vaccines to poorer nations.

In total, the UK has more than 400 million doses of vaccines on order – enough to vaccinate its population three times over.

But with some vaccines ordered yet to be approved by the UK medicines regulator and the domestic inoculation programme still in full flow, the Government has not yet put a date on when the first Covax donations will be made.

BRITAIN-G7-HEALTH-DIPLOMACY-VACCINES
The PM addressed global leaders
POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Addressing the leaders, including US President Joe Biden in his first major multilateral meeting, from Downing Street, Mr Johnson encouraged other developed nations to join the effort to increase the global vaccine supply.

He said: “Science is finally getting the upper hand on Covid, which is a great, great thing and long overdue.

“But there is no point in us vaccinating our individual populations – we’ve got to make sure the whole world is vaccinated because this is a global pandemic and it’s no use one country being far ahead of another, we’ve got to move together.

“So one of the things that I know that colleagues will be wanting to do is to ensure that we distribute vaccines at cost around the world – make sure everybody gets the vaccines that they need so that the whole world can come through this pandemic together.”

UK Prime Minister Hosts Virtual Meeting Of G7 Leaders
The UK has ordered more than 400 million doses
Getty Images

The Prime Minister used Friday’s online gathering to argue for an increase in funding for Covax, the multilateral global vaccine supply scheme being led by the World Health Organisation and other international bodies.

The push appeared to be well received, with the leaders issuing a joint statement afterwards agreeing to “intensify co-operation” on responding to the pandemic.

They committed to accelerating global vaccine development and deployment, including improving the sharing of information about the discovery of new variants, and cited 7.5 billion US dollars (£5.3 billion) of support coming from the G7 for the body behind Covax.

Oxfam welcomed the steps taken by the G7 but said they still remain “insufficient when compared to the scale of the Covid-19 threat”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in