UK prime minister Boris Johnson expects the Group of Seven (G7) to agree to donate 1 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries during its summit starting on Friday.
Just hours after US president Joe Biden vowed to supercharge the battle against the viru with a donation of 500 million Pfizer shots, Mr Johnson said Britain would give at least 100 million surplus vaccines to the poorest nations.
Mr Johnson has already called on G7 leaders to commit to vaccinate the entire world by the end of 2022 and the group is expected to pledge 1 billion doses during its three-day summit in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay, Cornwall.
Some campaign groups condemned the plan as a drop in the ocean, with Oxfam estimating nearly 4 billion people will depend for vaccines on COVAX, the programme that distributes Covid-19 shots to low and middle income countries.
Mr Johnson is expected to announce later today that due to the successful rollout of the vaccine in the UK, they are now in a position to offer surplus doses to countries where they are needed, according to excerpts of the announcement released by his office.
"In doing so we will take a massive step towards beating this pandemic for good," the statement reads.
Global effort
While scientists have brought vaccines to market at breakneck speeds - the UK has given a first dose to 77 per cent of its adult population and the United States 64 per cent - they say the pandemic will only end once all countries have been vaccinated.
With a global population nearing 8 billion and most people needing two doses, if not booster shots to tackle variants also, campaigners said the commitments marked a start but world leaders needed to go much further, and much faster.
"If the best G7 leaders can manage is to donate 1 billion vaccine doses then this summit will have been a failure," Oxfam's health policy manager Anna Marriott said, adding that the world would need 11 billion doses to end the pandemic.
Oxfam also called on G7 leaders to support a waiver on the intellectual property behind the vaccines.
"The lives of millions of people in developing countries should never be dependent on the goodwill of rich nations and profit-hungry pharmaceutical corporations," Ms Marriott said.
Of the 100 million British shots, 80 million will go to the COVAX programme led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the rest will be shared bilaterally with countries in need.
Mr Johnson echoed Mr Biden in calling on his fellow leaders to make similar pledges and for pharmaceutical companies to adopt the Oxford-AstraZeneca model of providing vaccines at cost for the duration of the pandemic.
Leaving poorer countries to deal with the pandemic alone risks allowing the virus to further mutate and evade vaccines. Charities have also said that logistical support will be needed to help administer large numbers of vaccines in poorer countries.
The UK doses will be drawn from the stock it has already procured for its domestic programme, and will come from suppliers Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Janssen, Moderna and others.
