Wealthy Nations To Discuss Global Vaccine Rollout

MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: Well, of course. This is absolutely something that we’re looking to do as well. It’s something we have been talking about here in Oxford in England, as the G7 health ministers have been meeting, to talk about how we get the whole world out of this pandemic. This isn’t over until it’s over everywhere. I’m standing in Oxford, the home to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. At the moment, about a half-a-billion doses of that vaccine have been delivered at cost, so no charge for intellectual property. And that’s been a critical part of the response so far in low- and middle-income countries. But it’s only part of it. We haven’t — we’re nowhere near there yet. So there’s a lot of work still to do.

GOLODRYGA: And no doubt the vaccine rollout has been a relative success in your country, especially when you consider what was transpiring in the rest of the E.U. and lagging behind there. More than 75 percent of residents in U.K. have received a first dose, which is why organizations like UNICEF are calling on the U.K. to release 20 percent of your vaccines to be donated around the world. Is there a number, a quantification you can give to the amount of vaccines that you will be donating?

HANCOCK: Well, the first thing is that, by making sure that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is available at cost, with no charge for the intellectual property, that means that that contributes to the vaccination of all those who receive it. And it’s an important part of the U.K.’s response, and much bigger than any direct contribution that we can make. Of course, when we have excess doses, we will look to what we can do with them. The U.K. has a proud history of supporting development across the world and supporting countries across the world, as does the United States. And that’s something that we will absolutely be working on. But we don’t have those excess doses yet. We have got to get the second doses into people who have had those first doses. As of today, 50 percent of all adults in the U.K. have now had a second dose, including, I understand, this morning, Prime Minister Boris Johnson got his second dose. So, we have got to deliver at home and we have got to deliver around the world. And the approach we have taken is to make sure that this — the vaccine that we supported the development of, the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, that vaccine is produced now in 20 different locations globally.