Boris Johnson pledges to donate more than 100 million vaccines against Covid-19

Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get engaged this week
to donate more than 100 million vaccines against Covid, as anticipated by The Sunday Times, as part of its diplomatic offensive before the imminent G7 summit. The announcement will come days after US President Joe Biden anticipated the donation of 80 million doses in the face of growing inequality in the distribution of vaccines worldwide.
“Vaccinating the entire world by the end of next year will be the greatest medical achievement in history,” Johnson said, in a message ahead of the June 11-13 meeting in Cornwall.. “I call on the G7 leaders to join us in ending this terrible pandemic and not allowing the devastation caused by the Coronavirus to happen again.”
To date, Boris Johnson had not put on the table a figure or a specific date on the contribution of the United Kingdom, beyond the contribution of 638 million euros to Covax, the global initiative for access to vaccines that has distributed 80 million doses in the least
favored.
The commitment that the United Kingdom is about to acquire is equivalent to 2,300 million pounds in the remainder of the year. According to The Sunday Times, Johnson intends to link this figure to the International Cooperation budget and thus compensate for the controversial cut from 0.7% to 0.5% that has led to a rebellion in his own ranks in Westminster.
Dozens of deputies from all political parties had addressed a letter to the prime minister asking him to show “moral leadership” on the issue of vaccine inequality. Medical researcher Jeremy Farrar (head of the Welcome Trust) and the director of Unicef in the United Kingdom, Steven Waugh, urged the prime minister last week to lead by example and commit to donating 20% of his vaccine stock.

According to estimates from the Duke University Center for Global Health, the UK has purchased a total of 517 million doses (for a population of 66 million).. The European Union would have acquired 2,900 million vaccines (for 445 million inhabitants). At the head of the world ranking, however, is Canada, with 381 million vaccines for 37 million inhabitants.. Taken together, rich countries have purchased enough doses to vaccinate more than four times their population.

In dramatic contrast, Pakistan currently has doses to cover only 0.1% of its population.. South Africa has 0.5 vaccines per inhabitant and the entire African continent has received barely 1% of the total of 1,500 million doses distributed worldwide. Colombia and Indonesia have 0.9 vaccines per inhabitant.

The success of the vaccination campaign in the United Kingdom (with 40 million recipients of the first dose and 27 double vaccinated) has allowed Boris Johnson a capacity for maneuver that he intends to take advantage of to now lead the global initiative against Covid, despite the concern unleashed by the rebound in infections attributable to the Indian variant.

Several experts such as the entrepreneur Paul Polman, at the head of the International Chamber of Commerce, have warned the British Government that a failure to tackle inequality in vaccines could compromise COP26 to be held in November in Glasgow. “We can't have global solidarity on climate change if we don't show solidarity on vaccines,” Polman warns.

“The impact of Covid translates into losses of one billion dollars for developing countries a year,” stressed Joss Garman, director of the European Climate Foundation.. “Overwhelmed by the health and financial crisis, almost 100 countries have yet to present their climate plans for COP26.”

Climate change, after the recovery from the pandemic and the reform of the global tax system, will be precisely one of the priority issues of the G7, which will be held with great restrictions due to Covid and will serve as a rehearsal for COP26.

More than 200 world leaders have addressed an open letter to the G7 demanding that the richest countries contribute at least two thirds of the estimated 55,000 million euros that would be needed to vaccinate the populations of the least favored countries.. “We are at a turning point in global cooperation and this would be the best health policy for the world,” say the signatories, including former UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson or the former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.