Skip to main content

G7 to Provide 1 bn Covid Vaccine Doses 'to World’

A meeting of finance ministers from across the G7 nations ahead of the G7 leaders' summit, at Lancaster House in London, Britain June 4, 2021. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Pool via REUTERS


G7 leaders will agree to expand global Covid vaccine manufacturing to provide at least one billion doses to the world through sharing and financing schemes, Britain said Thursday.


The announcement came after the United States said it would donate 500 million jabs to 92 poor and lower-middle-income nations.

The UK, which is hosting the big powers' gathering in southwest England, added it would donate at least 100 million surplus doses within the next year, including five million beginning in the coming weeks.

The commitments follow growing calls for richer countries to step up their efforts to share Covid-19 shots with less developed nations, with charities warning the current situation is leading to "vaccine apartheid".

Britain, which has orders for more than 400 million doses, has faced criticism for failing to begin making donations to poorer countries.

But on the eve of welcoming world leaders from the group of seven wealthy nations to their first summit in almost two years, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed that would soon change.

"As a result of the success of the UK's vaccine program we are now in a position to share some of our surplus doses with those who need them," he said.

"At the G7 Summit I hope my fellow leaders will make similar pledges".

A Downing Street statement said: "At the Summit world leaders are expected to announce they will provide at least one billion coronavirus vaccine doses to the world.. and set out a plan to expand vaccine manufacturing in order to achieve that goal."

Meanwhile EU members have agreed to donate at least 100 million doses by the end of 2021 -- with France and Germany each committing to providing 30 million.

French President Emmanuel Macron issued his own call for pharma groups producing vaccines to donate 10 percent of their production to poor nations.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday saluted a "historic" moment in the fight against the pandemic after Washington announced its donation.

"This is about our responsibility, our humanitarian obligation to save as many lives as we can," Biden told reporters at the start of his first overseas trip as president.

AFP quoted Biden as saying that the move was also in the US interest because of the risk of variants while the White House said the decision would "supercharge the global fight against the pandemic".


Labels:
Location: Avrupa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NATO Chief: No New Cold War With China

Flags of NATO member countries flutter at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday there is no new Cold War with China but the western allies will have to adapt to the challenge of Beijing's rise. "We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reporters after a NATO leaders' summit. "But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security." NATO leaders are expected on Monday to brand China as a security risk to the Western alliance for the first time, a day after the Group of Seven issued a statement on human rights and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation. G7 leaders, meeting in Britain over the weekend, scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Can Biden-Erdogan meeting break the diplomatic impasse on key issues?

Turkey is a US ally and a NATO member, but under President Erdogan’s assertive foreign policy, Ankara has shown the capacity to go its own way if necessary. American and Turkish leaders, Joe Biden and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet on June 14 at the NATO summit amid a backdrop of serious disagreements on various issues, ranging from Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400s to Washington’s ongoing support of the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, a terror group in northern Syria. There are also other issues like Biden’s recent acceptance of the 1915 incidents concerning armed fighting between Armenians and Turks during WWI as a genocide, and Washington’s previous criticism of Turkey’s assertive eastern Mediterranean policy. Despite those differences, Turkey and the US continue to have close commercial relations and across Central Asia and the Caucasus, both countries have similar political stances. Ankara, like Washington, has been also opposing Russian intervention in both the Ukrainian and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

EU Advises Against Astrazeneca Shot in People With Rare Blood Condition

A vial of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is seen at a vaccination center in Westfield Stratford City shopping center, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, February 18, 2021. (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls) Europe's drug regulator on Friday advised against using AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in people with a history of a rare bleeding condition and said it was looking into heart inflammation cases after inoculation with all coronavirus shots. The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) safety committee in its evaluation said that capillary leak syndrome must be added as a new side effect to labelling on AstraZeneca's vaccine, Reuters reported. It is a condition in which blood leaks from the smallest of vessels into muscles and body cavities and is characterized by swelling and a drop in blood pressure. The regulator first began looking into these cases in April and the recommendation adds to AstraZeneca's woes after its vaccine has been dogge...
Post a Comment
Read more