Covid-19: Vaccination in Developing Countries

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I do not know the answer to the noble Lord’s second question. As regards the expiry date issue, decisions on donations are driven by the availability of vaccines from domestic supply. Once the Health Secretary is confident that vaccines are available to donate directly to partners, the Foreign Secretary prioritises how they are shared. Obviously, avoiding vaccine expiry and wastage is a UK core objective, determining when and where we share or deploy doses, and we strive to observe WHO guidelines on that. No vaccines will be shared without an agreement with recipients that there is sufficient time for distribution and deployment before expiry. To expand a little: obviously, it would be much more sensible to manufacture in Africa, and the UK is working with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing to develop its road map for African vaccine manufacturing over the next year.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his position; it is the first time I have been able to do so. But does he not understand that at the very time our Government are asking our health networks to work together for a third jab, the Government’s cuts to health networks in developing countries—40% at a minimum, wiping out programmes across many countries—are inhibiting the distribution of the first and second jabs to those countries? The Independent Commission for Aid Impact said that this was a direct impact on the world’s ability to vaccinate. Can the Government at the very least review and reverse the shameful cuts to the health networks for the very people who need them most at this time?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will appreciate that I cannot commit the Government to all those things, but I can tell him a bit about some of the things we are doing, which I hope will reassure him a little. He will also understand that this is not necessarily my specialist subject so I ask him to bear with me. We have deployed UK emergency medical teams to 11 African countries to provide training and clinical advice. We have also deployed a UK public health rapid support team to provide specialist technical assistance to public health agencies in Nigeria, the Gambia, Tunisia and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. We are continuing to provide technical support to build genomic sequencing and country capability through the UK’s new variant assessment platform, including in African countries. We are doing a lot.