Ashraf AboArafe
CAIRO – In his virtual address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced £500 million in funding for the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, a facility to help 92 of the world’s poorest countries access a coronavirus vaccine.
The funding will support developing countries in tackling the virus and help to halt the global spread of the pandemic. Johnson also announced the UK’s pledge of £340 million over the next four years to the World Health Organization (WHO), which is an increase of 30 per cent from the previous four-year period, making Britain the third largest donor to the WHO – after the US and the Gates Foundation.
The contribution to the WHO will help fund an in-depth review into the origins of coronavirus and the implementation of necessary reforms to ensure the organisation is flexible and responsive to future emergencies.
“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 divisions and to heal the world,” said Johnson.
During yesterday’s assembly, the Prime Minister also set out UK’s ambitious five-point plan to prevent future pandemics. The plan, developed in consultation with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Wellcome Trust, a British research charity, starts with a proposal to develop a worldwide network of ‘zoonotic hubs’ to identify dangerous pathogens before they leap from animals to humans, as COVID-19 is believed to have done.
Other measures include boosting manufacturing capacity for treatments and vaccines, improving pandemic early warning systems, agreeing global protocols for health crises and removing trade barriers.
“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,” said the Prime Minister.
Johnson also pledged to use the UK’s G7 Presidency next year to work with global partners to implement the five-point plan, representing an innovative new approach to preventing global health crises.
