GORDON Brown has accused the G7 leaders of an “'unforgivable moral failure” in falling well short of the World Health Organization’s ask to provide enough vaccines to safeguard the global population.
The former prime minister has warned the summit, being hosted by Boris Johnson in Cornwall “will go down as a missed opportunity” with leaders set to agree to offer 1 billion vaccines to the world instead of the recommended 11 billion that the WHO say is needed.
Speaking on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme, Mr Brown said: “When we needed 11 billion vaccines, we’ve only got offered a plan for one billion.
“We needed $50 billion allocated to the vaccination of the world and only $5 billion.
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He added: “I think this summit will also go down as an unforgivable moral failure, when the richest countries are sitting around the table with the power to do something about it.
“Now that we’ve discovered the vaccine, we have not set out the comprehensive plan that will deliver vaccination by the middle of next year.”
Mr Brown pointed to the consequences of failing to vaccinate the global population and the impact on the UK and western countries on the virus reseeding.
He said: “We will have a huge problem of a division between the richest countries that are safe and the poorest countries that are not safe.
“But then the problem will come back to haunt the richest countries because we will have contagion spreading that will hurt even the people who are vaccinated because of mutations and variants.”
US President Joe Biden has pledged to donate half a billion Pfizer doses for 92 low and lower-middle income countries and the African Union.
Boris Johnson said the UK will provide 5 million doses by the end of September, with 25 million more handed over by the end of 2021.
Mr Brown said the promises would not be enough to vaccinate the world by the end of next year.
He added: “Boris Johnson said...that this will be the greatest feat in medical history – he said it was the great challenge of post-war history.
“I’m afraid there will be smiles but they are not solutions.
“Millions of people will go unvaccinated and thousands of people, I’m afraid, will die.”
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