Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to help increase the manufacturing of covid-19 vaccines in developing countries.

The UK backs the Oxford-AstraZeneca model of voluntary licensing to expand the production of affordable vaccines. With UK Government support, a global licencing deal helped see transfer of Oxford-AstraZeneca's technology to other manufacturers to establish 20 supply chains across the world, including the Serum Institute of India. Around 2.5 billion AstraZeneca doses have been distributed at-cost to more than 170 countries. Building on the success of these partnerships to expand global vaccine is a priority for the government.

We are working with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the COVAX Manufacturing Task Force, industry and other international partners to champion diversification of research and manufacturing capacity. This includes working with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing to support development of its roadmap for African vaccine manufacturing. On 8 March, the UK will host the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit to raise funds to achieve CEPI's goal to develop vaccines against new health threats in 100 days and rapidly scale-up regional manufacturing for affordable global supply.