UK Minister for COVID Vaccine Deployment, Nadhim Zahawi, said on Tuesday that he is confident the United Kingdom will receive enough doses of the antidote to offer all adults in the country the possibility of being immunized against coronavirus
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2021) UK Minister for COVID Vaccine Deployment, Nadhim Zahawi, said on Tuesday that he is confident the United Kingdom will receive enough doses of the antidote to offer all adults in the country the possibility of being immunized against coronavirus.
"We have 367 million vaccines that we have ordered from several different suppliers, so I'm confident that we will meet our target and continue to vaccine the whole adult population by the autumn," Zahawi told Sky news broadcaster.
Asked about reports that the European Union was threatening to block exports of COVID-19 vaccines to countries outside the bloc after a row with UK-based AstraZeneca pharmaceutical, the minister said he was confident the UK will receive the doses already acquired of the vaccine developed jointly by the US company Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech.
"I am confident that the Pfizer vaccine will be delivered. Pfizer has made sure that they'd always deliver for us and they'll continue to do so," he said.
Zahawi also warned against the so-called vaccine nationalism and recalled that the UK is one of the largest contributors to the World Health Organization's COVAX program for an equitable distribution of vaccines in developing countries.
"No one is safe until the whole world is safe, that's why we need to work together," the minister stressed.
The UK government aims to vaccinate 15 million people from the four-priority groups - the over-70s, healthcare workers, care home staff and those required to shield - by mid-February and millions more of over-50s by spring.
More than 6,5 million people in the UK have already received a first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines, and more than 470,000 people have had a second, according to the latest data released by the Department of Health and Social Care.
