Nine million vaccines to be donated bilaterally and offered to COVAX to help tackle COVID-19 abroad
The vaccines are expected to start leaving the UK this week, with Indonesia, Jamaica and Kenya among countries set to receive doses
The UK has pledged to donate 100 million vaccines overseas by June 2022, 80 million of which will go to COVAX
The UK will this week begin delivering 9 million COVID-19 vaccines around the world, including to Indonesia, Jamaica and Kenya, to help tackle the pandemic, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announced today (Wednesday 28 July).
Five million doses are being offered to COVAX, the scheme to ensure equitable, global access to COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX will urgently distribute them to lower-income countries via an equitable allocation system which prioritises delivering vaccines to people who most need them. Another 4 million doses will be shared directly with countries in need.
Indonesia will receive 600,000 doses, 300,000 will be sent to Jamaica and 817,000 are to be transported to Kenya, among other countries.
The UK is donating the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, made by Oxford Biomedica in Oxford and packaged in Wrexham, North Wales.
This is the first tranche of the 100 million vaccines the Prime Minister pledged the UK would share within the next year at last month’s G7 in Cornwall, with 30 million due to be sent by the end of the year. At least 80 million of the 100 million doses will go to COVAX, with the rest going to countries directly. The donations will help meet the pledge that G7 leaders made to vaccinate the world and end the pandemic in 2022.
This week’s deployment will help meet the urgent need for vaccines from countries around the world, including in Africa, South East Asia and the Caribbean. These regions are experiencing high levels of COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
The 9 million Oxford-AstraZeneca doses being donated are not needed for the domestic rollout. The doses will be UK-branded.
Five million vaccines are being offered to COVAX, the global scheme to get COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries, to be delivered to the most vulnerable countries. Further details will be announced in due course.
Tthe UK has also signed agreements with Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Cambodia, Guyana, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Thailand and Vietnam to receive up to 4 million doses.
The vaccines doses being donated on a bilateral basis are being transported by Crown Agents.
Details of future donations will be announced in due course. Around 80% of the total 100 million doses will go to COVAX, and the remainder will be shared bilaterally with countries in need.
The UK provided £90 million to support the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine: £25 million on the initial research and development, and £65 million to scale up manufacturing.
The UK made it clear as part of that funding that the vaccine should be affordable around the world and consequently AstraZeneca agreed to distribute it at a non-profit price during the pandemic.
The cost of this donation has been funded through UK Official Development Assistance, and will come over and above the ODA spending target of 0.5% of GNI if needed.