G7 leaders pledged 1 billion doses – News

The G7 summit, the first that the leaders of Germany, Italy, France, the United States, Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom have had in person since the start of the pandemic of Covid-19, ended today with a commitment of one billion vaccines against the coronavirus for the rest of the world.

“I am happy to report that this weekend leaders committed to a billion doses, a big step towards immunizing the world,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who did not specify how they will deliver these vaccines and only indicated that this could be “directly or by funding from Covax”, as published by France 24.

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The British President was more direct when asked about the release of patents for the Covid-19 vaccine, a debate that is on the global stage as the release of intellectual property rights would allow laboratories in other countries to They don’t have as many vaccines to recreate them and produce them faster.

However, Johnson maintained that he did not consider it possible to release the patents since the commitment that some manufacturers like AstraZeneca already have is to sell them at cost, without making a profit. .

This goes against the position of the United States since the government of Joe Biden had asked pharmaceutical companies in early May to give up their intellectual property rights in order to end the pandemic.

Journalists asked Johnson about the responsibility of the authorities for the slow distribution of vaccines in many countries, mainly developing.

“I think we are producing vaccines as quickly as possible, but we can do more,” replied the Prime Minister.

Johnson said countries “must” work together to avoid “devastation” and, to that extent, the G7 has crafted a deal to prevent future pandemics.

The British president spoke of the establishment of a “global radar” which “is willing to discover diseases before they spread”.

Biden, for his part, explained that the system is still under construction, but that the idea is that there is a framework that can prevent a pandemic “before it gets out of hand.”

Part of this agreement includes capacity building for the World Health Organization (WHO).

The inspectors of this body are supposed to have “similar powers” to those of the auditors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“We have to make sure that WHO inspectors can go to an area to independently determine what is going on. We hope that in the future much of this darkness will be dispelled,” Johnson said. . .

According to the Prime Minister, this would help the WHO to investigate what is happening with diseases around the world in order to take action to prevent a future pandemic. .

In addition, the G7 statement noted that the intention is to increase the capacity of the world’s laboratories, improve early warning systems and shorten the development cycle of vaccines, treatments and tests so that ‘it goes from 300 to 100 days. .