The United Kingdom will continue to assist the world battle the coronavirus through the donation of a further 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine with most of it going into the COVAX Facility. 

The announcement by the UK government comes on the back of the 47th Group of Seven (G7) Summit which was convened recently in Cornwall, England with the economic group announcing their determination to beat the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better.

The Group of Seven is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

The group met for the first time in two years in Cornwall on the southwest of England from 11-13 June and shared their agenda for global action to build back better.

This included action to “end the pandemic and prepare for the future”, which according to the Summit Communique is to be done through driving an intensified international effort, starting immediately, to vaccinate the world by getting as many safe vaccines to as many people as possible and as fast as possible.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer on Wednesday, the Acting UK High Commissioner to Samoa, Ian Richards explained his country's vaccine intervention that was announced at the recent G7 Summit.

"The UK will donate a further 100 million doses of the vaccine and most of that will be for COVAX," he said.

According to the Acting High Commissioner, the UK is a firm believer in the COVAX Facility being the best method to ensure that the vaccine reaches the people that need it most.

He said of that amount 5 million doses will be released in September this year and 25 million more by the end of this year and by the end of next year 100 million doses, which Mr. Richards says is the UK commitment.

Mr. Richards said Samoa will be one of the countries to benefit from that as he said that the COVAX Facility operates in a way that everyone benefits equally.

Other assistance he made reference to was the increasing capacity of vaccines being manufactured on every continent around the world and also the Personal Protective Equipment (P.P.E) which he said will inevitably benefit Samoa.

Improving early warning systems for the next time there is a pandemic was a big focus of the G7 Summit discussions, according to Mr Richards.

"We don't know what the next one will be, we don't know if it will be similar to [COVID-19] but it's going to come and the experience of [COVID] has shown us that we are not really ready as a global community," he said.

Mr. Richards has worked with the UK mission in Geneva which has worked closely with the World Health Organisation and he says from his experience, the UK has a very close relationship with the W.H.O. 

The UK is also a major financial contributor to the W.H.O through the United Nations as it is their interest that the W.H.O functions efficiently.

The United Kingdom's other assistance to the W.H.O is through a number of senior British member staff of the W.H.O. such as Dr. David Nabarro who is the special envoy on COVID-19 for the W.H.O. whom he has worked with in the past on the Ebola Crisis in West Africa.