Boris Johnson’s government has warned that the world would not be vaccinated against Covid until 2024 under current rates, urging other countries to speed up their plans to donate surplus jabs to poorer nations.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said he hoped other countries would step up their efforts after Britain began distributing the first tranche of the 100 million vaccines it plans to give away by the middle of 2022.
“We know on the current trajectory the world will only be adequately vaccinated at 2024, at the end,” Mr Raab said during a visit to the Oxford Biomedica factory on Wednesday.
He added: “We want to get that date back to the middle of next year, and that will make a massive difference to those countries affected.”
The foreign secretary also claimed the UK has been “leading” the international vaccination effort to “give enough doses to get the world vaccinated”.
The first batch of nine million excess coronavirus vaccines from Britain will be shipped off to “vulnerable” nations and Commonwealth allies this week, Mr Raab said.
Indonesia will receive 600,000 doses, 300,000 will be sent to Jamaica and 817,000 are to be transported to Kenya, among other countries, the Foreign Office said.
“The first nine million doses will be going on Friday to countries from vulnerable countries in the Indo-Pacific, such as Laos, Cambodia, key partners like Indonesia, right the way through the Commonwealth countries from Kenya to Jamaica,” Mr Raab added.
“I think what it shows, as well as the domestic rollout and the importance of coming out of the lockdowns in the UK, is that global Britain is also a lifesaving force for good in the world.”
Leaders of the major industrialised nations at the G7 summit in Cornwall pledged more than one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine – 870 million jabs shared directly and the rest through funding to the UN-led Covax initiative – to poorer countries.
But Mr Johnson and other G7 leaders were heavily criticised over the pledge – accused by aid groups of failing to meet the scale of the challenge. Former prime minister Gordon Brown called it an “unforgivable moral failure”.
More than 100 former world leaders had wanted the G7 to come up with a detailed plan to vaccinate the world by the end of 2022, and pay two-thirds of the £50bn cost of a vaccination programme.
As the first surplus doses go out to Kenya, Mr Johnson welcomes Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta to his Chequers retreat on Wednesday afternoon, ahead of the two leaders hosting the global education summit in London tomorrow.
Asked what he made of areas within Australia being in lockdown despite having three million stockpiled AstraZeneca jabs, Mr Raab said: “We know that AstraZeneca is safe – it has been WHO approved, it has been approved by the European, the UK agencies.
“The vast majority of Covax-distributed vaccines to the poorest and most vulnerable countries around the world today have been AstraZeneca. It is crucially important that people get the jab, whichever country they are.”
