Covid-19: Access to Vaccine

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, of course, we recognise the importance of ensuring that any successful vaccine developed can be distributed to all those who need it, particularly in developing countries. The logistics and the support needed for vaccine distribution will be very important. We are working closely with partners like Gavi to help roll that out, and with civil society organisations to make sure that we can get the vaccine to the very people who need it.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister just mentioned Gavi. I received its briefing this morning, which announced that 181 countries have signed up to the COVAX Facility. I welcome the UK’s leadership on this, but one country is missing: the United States. What are we doing to ensure that the United States joins the global economy in the fight against this pandemic?

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, we are very pleased with the number of countries, including China, that have signed up to the COVAX Facility. The UK has been working hard with our partners across the world on that. Just yesterday I spoke to some of our team in the Caribbean, who have recently helped all the Caribbean sign up to the COVAX Facility. The US continues to be one of the biggest donors to Gavi’s core immunisation programme, which we of course welcome. We continue to encourage the US to join multilateral efforts to support equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines.