Boris Johnson is facing calls to immediately begin donating vaccines to poorer nations or risk hoarding supplies while frontline workers are exposed to coronavirus.
Health and development charities urged the Prime Minister on Sunday to take “accelerated action” and “swiftly clarify” how doses will be shared.
Wellcome, led by Sage scientist Sir Jeremy Farrar, and Save the Children UK were among those making the demand in a letter to Mr Johnson.
With more than half of adults having received a jab, they say the UK is “one of the world’s highest per-capita buyers” of vaccines and is on track to have more than 100 million surplus doses.
“There is therefore the high risk that the UK will be hoarding limited supply whilst health workers and the most vulnerable in low and middle-income countries do not have access,” the letter reads.
“The UK will be sitting on enough surplus vaccine doses to vaccinate the world’s frontline health workers twice over.”
READ MORE: Iain Macwhirter: Hating Boris isn’t enough – this election will be difficult for the SNP
They are urging Britain to immediately begin donating doses through the Covax initiative, which is working to provide vaccines for low and middle-income countries.
The Government responded that it will share “the majority of any future surplus” vaccines with the Covax pool “when these are available”.
The experts’ case is not just a moral one – they point to research suggesting that vaccine nationalism and the unequal distribution of jabs could cost the UK £106 billion.
Sir Jeremy said the UK will still have contractual access to at least 100 million surplus doses once the entire population is vaccinated, which he said “won’t be of use in the UK”.
“Now is the time to think beyond our borders. The world won’t be safe while any single country is still fighting the virus,” he said.
“If left to spread, it risks mutating to an extent where our vaccines and treatments no longer work. This goes beyond ethics – it’s a scientific and economic imperative. Science has given us the exit strategy. We must use it properly.”
READ MORE: Galloway eyeing up return to Westminster
Anti-poverty campaigns One and Global Citizen also signed the letter, as did the Results UK charity and the Pandemic Action Network.
A UK Government spokesperson said: “The UK has played a leading role in championing global access to coronavirus vaccines. This includes contributing £548 million, as one of the largest donors, to the Covax Advance Market Commitment, which has already helped 20 lower-middle countries to receive doses.
“The Prime Minister has confirmed the UK will share the majority of any future surplus coronavirus vaccines from our supply with the Covax pool, when these are available. No one is safe until we are all safe.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel