UK Shows Itself As Leader in the Fight Against Coronavirus
On 4 June 2020, the UK hosted the Global Vaccine Summit, at which Boris Johnson told attendees that events such as these were vital to the fight against coronavirus (COVID-19).
He highlighted the UK's enthusiasm to continue to work with such important organisations as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which are crucial in facing the global difficulties caused by the virus.
The Global Vaccine Summit was a key event in the diary this month, as Gavi leads the way in gathering global resources together with the hope, and aim, of producing a COVID-19 vaccine sooner rather than later. With virtual attendance at the summit reaching over 300 and 42 Heads of States in attendance with 52 countries represented, this was a global event hosted by a country not only determined to do its part, but play a key role.
The UK continued to show its importance in the global response to COVID-19, as it pledged £330 million a year to Gavi over the next five years and £200 million to the World Health Organisation, the United Nations and other key charities to help fund the fight against the pandemic. In addition, work on the home front continues, with the Anglo-Swedish Big Pharma company AstraZeneca's collaboration with the University of Oxford resulting in the expansion of its UK manufacturing capacity to support the manufacturing, procurement and distribution of 300 million doses of the vaccine, should it prove successful. Meanwhile, the UK's world-leading genomics programme, Genomics England, continues to pioneer research in how genetic factors influence COVID-19 and our susceptibility to the virus.
The UK's behaviour during this crisis, a country once dominated by Brexit and its doomsday predictions, has highlighted its ability, strength and determination to be seen as a global player its own right and deep resolve to weather the stormy economic seas to come.