Janet Daby
Main Page: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)Department Debates - View all Janet Daby's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. We have an independent regulator here in the MHRA and, of course, Public Health England, and we have a yellow card system where adverse incidents are recorded—they can be reported directly by a GP, a clinician or the person themselves. All that data is published and people can access it on their MHRA website, or google it and see it. An incredible part of the success story of the vaccination programme is that sharing of data, which has led to the highest level of vaccine acceptance among adults in the world. The figures suggest that about 90% of all adults say that they will take the vaccine, or are very likely to take the vaccine.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]
What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the UK is a leader in the global response to tackling covid-19, especially given the fact that we are not safe until everyone is safe?
Nadhim Zahawi
When the Prime Minister set up the vaccines taskforce he gave it two priorities: first, to discover the vaccines that would work, in order to contract for them or to manufacture them in the UK; and secondly, to work out how to help the rest of the world, which is why we were the first country to put £548 million into COVAX and very much establish COVAX, which now has more than 450 million doses, the bulk of which are Oxford-AstraZeneca, which is our gift to the world. Some 98% of the COVAX jabs that have been delivered and have protected people have come from Oxford-AstraZeneca. Pfizer has also been doing the same thing: from day one its chief executive, Albert Bourla, spoke about vaccine equality, and Pfizer is offering vaccines at cost to low and middle-income countries.