UK hosts virtual Global Vaccine Summit

COVID-19 has become the greatest global health challenge in a generation. Just under a year into my tenure as the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, this is very different to what I imagined I’d be working on. The pandemic is creating public and personal challenges for everybody. However, tackling the virus also presents unprecedented opportunities for partnership between countries across the globe. 

The UK is playing a leading role in work to find a vaccine for COVID-19 and ensure that immunisation for other diseases does not go off-track during the pandemic. Today, Prime Minister Boris Johnson hosts the virtual Global Vaccine Summit 2020. 

Developing a successful vaccine will take the collective effort of government, academia, industry, and medicine. We are already seeing progress in UK efforts, with clinical trials underway at the University of Oxford and Imperial College, London – both of which are supported by around £ 130 m of British Government funding. It is through supporting the world’s leading scientists and researchers and enhancing our manufacturing capabilities that we will be able to build up resilience against future epidemics.  

The UK and Sri Lanka have long been partners in education and innovation, and the COVID-19 response is no exception. The University of Oxford and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura are partnering on ground-breaking research to help prevent, treat and control further outbreaks. They are drawing on their longstanding collaborative studies in the field of dengue fever to progress advances in COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The British High Commission is proud to now be funding this research directly. 

As well as developing a vaccine for COVID-19, it is critical that we maintain routine immunisation for other diseases. The UK-hosted virtual Global Vaccine Summit aims to raise at least $ 7.4 billion to save up to eight million lives through vaccinating 300 million more children over the next five years. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has already immunised over 760 million children in the world’s poorest countries, saving more than 13 million lives. 

The UK is proud to be Gavi’s leading donor and on 29 April our International Development Secretary pledged the equivalent of £330 million a year over the next five years. We are now globally calling on other governments to make commitments to fully fund Gavi’s vital mission for the next five years.

Sri Lanka has an impressive record in many aspects of public health. Malaria and Polio have been eradicated. Sri Lanka has an excellent track record of universal vaccination for communicable diseases. Like the UK, free healthcare is a proud tradition here. That is why I am pleased that President Rajapaksa is able to share Sri Lanka’s experiences at the Summit. 

To tackle the virus, we need a truly global effort – because no one country, and no one pharmaceutical company, will be able to do this alone. The more we pull together and share our expertise, the faster our scientists will succeed. Disease outbreaks do not respect borders. We need a fully coordinated international response to mitigate the global impact of COVID-19 and prevent a pandemic of this scale in the future. 

We need to share lessons and work together, drawing on the best of global science and evidence. That is why we think the Global Vaccine Summit is such an important opportunity, moving us closer to a world that is free of the suffering that comes from COVID-19 and many other diseases like it.

(The writer is British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.)