The G7 pledges to donate 1 billion Covid-19 vaccines to poor countries

The G7 formally adopted a plan on Sunday to donate 1 billion doses of covid-19 vaccines until the end of 2022 to disadvantaged countries, in an attempt by large economies to correct the marked global inequalities in vaccination.

“A week ago, I asked my fellow leaders to help prepare and deliver the doses we need to vaccinate the whole world by the end of 2022. I am pleased to announce that this weekend the leaders pledged more than 1 billion doses, already either directly or through COVAX. That includes 100 million from the UK for the world’s poorest countries, which is another big step towards vaccinating the world,” Johnson said.

On the Oxford-AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine, Johnson said: “Today more than 500 million people are safe thanks to the development and production of that vaccine.”

“What we have to do as the G7 is to demonstrate the benefits of democracy and freedom and human rights to the rest of the world. We can achieve this through the history of medicine. We can do this by working together to prevent the devastation caused by the coronavirus from happening again,” he added.

Earlier this week, Johnson announced that the UK will donate to the COVAX initiative and countries in need at least 100 million doses of surplus covid-19 vaccines over the next year.

Before the G7 summit, US President Joe Biden announced that his country plans to donate 500 million doses of Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine worldwide.

As for the schedule, officials said that the Pfizer doses will begin shipping in August and that a total of 200 million doses will be delivered by the end of this year. The remaining 300 million doses will be delivered in the first half of 2022.