UK to donate 100 mn COVID vaccine doses by next year
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will donate at least 100 million surplus coronavirus vaccine doses next year, including 5 million from the coming weeks, reports UNB.
The donation is as well as the UK work to aid Oxford-AstraZeneca's contribution to fighting COVID and the UK's financial backing to COVAX.
The UK will donate 5 million doses by the end of September, from the coming weeks, mostly for use in the world's poorest countries.
The Prime Minister has also committed to donating an additional 95 million doses next year, including 25 million more by the end of 2021.
Some 80% of the 100m doses will head to COVAX and the rest will be shared bilaterally with countries in need.
By sharing 5 million doses in the coming weeks the UK will meet an instantaneous demand for vaccines for the countries worst damaged by coronavirus without delaying completion of our initial domestic vaccination programme.
The other day the British Prime Minister asked fellow G7 leaders to greatly help vaccinate the complete world by the finish of next year.
By vaccinating more persons around the world not merely will we help bring a finish to the global coronavirus pandemic, we will certainly reduce the risk to people in the UK.
This includes drastically reducing the threat posed by vaccine-resistant variants emerging in areas with large-scale outbreaks.
The UK helped to determine COVAX this past year and is its fourth-biggest donor, pledging £548 million to the scheme.
COVAX has so far provided 81 million doses to 129 of the world's poorest countries. 96% of the were the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the development which was funded by the UK.
With the support of the UK Government, Oxford-AstraZeneca are distributing their vaccines on a not for profit basis the world.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said because the start of the pandemic the UK has led just how in efforts to safeguard humanity from this deadly disease.
Over this past year we funded the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on the foundation it would be distributed at cost to the world.
"This unprecedented model, which puts people squarely above profit, means over half of a billion doses have been administered in 160 countries so far," he said.
Because of the success of the UK's vaccine programme we are actually able to share some of our surplus doses with those that need them. In doing this we will take a massive step towards beating this pandemic for good.
The doses the UK has announced it will donate today will be drawn from the UK's expected excess supply.
The 100 million figure has been calculated based on the total had a need to vaccinate the UK population, factoring in the opportunity of future vaccine-resistant strains being detected and potential disruptions to our supply.
