EFE.- The United Kingdom will begin distributing 9 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to developing and severely affected countries such as Kenya, Indonesia and Jamaica from this week.
This was announced on Wednesday by the British Foreign Minister, Dominic Raab, who assured that the donation of vaccines is a strategy to “help the most vulnerable” and, at the same time, protect the levels of immunity achieved in the United Kingdom, where more than 70% of the adult population already has the complete pattern.
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“We know that we will not be safe until everyone is safe,” Raab remarked in a statement, coinciding with the head of British Health, Sajid Javid, convinced that helping poor countries build a “defense wall” against the virus helps prevent the emergence of new variants that may threaten the effectiveness of vaccines.
The nine million doses of AstraZeneca left over in the UK are the first portion of the 100 million vaccines that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to distribute to developing countries, he announced in June at the G7 summit in Cornwall.
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Of this first shipment, five million vaccines will be offered to the Covax program, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure equitable and global access to vaccines, while the remaining four million injections will be distributed directly to countries people in need.
Among the biggest beneficiaries in this first batch are Kenya, which will receive 817,000 vaccines; Indonesia, with 600,000, and Jamaica, where 300,000 doses will arrive.
Of the total 100 million AstraZeneca vaccines that the UK plans to donate, 80% will go to the WHO Covax program and the remainder will be distributed bilaterally to vulnerable areas with high levels of covid, such as Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. .
The announcement of the first shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines coincides with Amnesty International’s (AI) call on the British Government to urgently share leftover doses and take other steps to ensure equitable access to vaccines globally.
“Looking to the future, the United Kingdom and other countries must also renounce their rights to the vaccine to ensure the multiplication of production to meet global demand,” said AI Secretary General Agnès Callamard in a statement.