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UK promises £500m to global vaccine sharing scheme

pharmafile | September 28, 2020 | News story | Sales and Marketing  

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced in a speech to the UN General Assembly that the UK is set to give £500 million to a new global vaccine sharing scheme. 

The scheme calls for common protocols to be established on sharing data, developing a global network of hubs to identify dangerous pathogens before they can jump from animals to humans and improve manufacturing capacity for treatments and vaccines. 

Johnson told the UN: “After nine months of fighting COVID, the very notion of the international community looks tattered. We know that we cannot continue in this way. Unless we unite and turn our fire against our common foe, we know that everyone will lose.

“Now is the time, therefore, here at what I devoutly hope will be the first and last ever Zoom UNGA, for humanity to reach across borders and repair these ugly rifts,” he continued. “Here in the UK, the birthplace of Edward Jenner who pioneered the world’s first vaccine, we are determined to do everything in our power to work with our friends across the UN to heal those divisions and to heal the world.”

Johnson also warned that the international community should never cut corners on developing a vaccine as it would help fuel anti-vaccination campaigns. 

The UK pledged an additional £340 million over the next four years to the World Health Organization, a 30% increase on the previous period, which makes the UK one of the biggest funders of the organisation. 

Conor Kavanagh

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