Boris Johnson confirms G7 pledge to donate more than 1bn vaccines to poorer countries

Boris Johnson says the G7 wealthy nations will pledge over 1 billion vaccine doses for poorer nations.

The commitment falls far short of the 11 billion doses the World Health Organization said is needed to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of the world’s population to truly end the pandemic.

The UK will start donating vaccines within weeks and the Prime Minister said the UK’s contribution is another 100 million from now to next June of the vaccines.

The cost could be around £1billion depending on which vaccines are donated.

But Mr Johnson has rejected suggestions that supplying a billion doses of vaccines is a “moral failure” and not enough to cover the needs of poorer countries.

The Prime Minister told a news conference at the end of the G7 summit in Cornwall: “This is another billion made up of a massive contribution by the United States and other friends.

“Already of the 1.5 billion vaccines that have been distributed around the world, I think that people in this country should be very proud that half a billion of them are as a result of the actions taken by the UK Government in doing that deal with the Oxford scientists and AstraZeneca to distribute it at cost.”

He added that “we are going flat out and we are producing vaccines as fast as we can, and distributing them as fast as we can”.

The target to vaccinate the world by the end of next year will be done “very largely thanks to the efforts of the countries who have come here today”, according to Mr Johnson.

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