BORIS Johnson will this week rally G7 leaders to raise a BILLION vaccines for the world’s poorest.
The PM today unveiled the scale of his agenda to coral the planet’s most powerful nations to ride to the rescue of un-jabbed countries.
During a fiery row over Government aid spending Sir Keir Starmer demanded the UK to “lead, not just to host” at the G7 summit in Cornwall.
The Labour leader said: “Will the Prime Minister take the lead at the G7 and do whatever is necessary to make global vaccinations a reality?”
Mr Johnson replied: “We were able to ensure that one in three of the 1.5billion doses that have been distributed around the world are the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine – that is global Britain in action, to say nothing of the billion vaccines that we hope to raise from the G7 this week.“
Leaders from the UK, US, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan will converge on Carbis Bay this weekend.
Ahead of the meeting the PM called on them to draw up plans “vaccinate the world by the end of the year”.
Poorer countries have warned they remain vulnerable to vicious outbreaks because of a low stockpile of doses.
The PM will urge counterparts to bolster manufacturing for vaccines, tear down barriers for global distribution and give leftover doses to countries in need.
He will tell them to follow in Britain’s footsteps and ship off extra doses of homegrown doses, as the UK has done with the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab
The Oxford vaccine has been rolled out in 166 countries, compared to 99 for Pfizer and 45 for Moderna.
Britain is one of the world-leading vaccinators and nearly 69million doses have been administered so far.
After the PM made his pledge to raise a billion vaccines in Cornwall this weekend, Sir Keir Starmer said: “That would sound a lot better if the Prime Minister wasn’t the only G7 leader cutting his aid budget.”
Ministers have come under fire from their own backbenchers for cutting foreign aid by £4billion.
Mr Johnson hit back: “Under this Government we’ve spent more and we continue to spend more than Labour ever did.
“Under Blair, under Brown even, when they were spending money on Brazilian dancers in Hackney to raise consciousness… of global poverty.”
