Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the UK, is challenged to do the right thing and help ensure that the world's poorest nations can produce vaccines.
The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford demanded the UK prime minister stop blocking the vaccine intellectual property waiver if only on a temporary basis so that developing nations can make vaccines themselves.
He raised the issue in a letter to the Conservative leader, stressing that there needs to be a truly effective global vaccine strategy if coronavirus is to be defeated.
The proportion of people in the developing world who have been jabbed is much lower than in the UK, which is rolling out booster vaccines to the population.
It was reported that some 54.2% of the world's population had had at least one vaccine dose at the end of November. This falls to just 5.8% in low-income countries. Blackford said something.
The UK only donated six million of a pledge of 100 million to the Covax initiative because of the fact that developing nations are left to rely on vaccine donations alone. All countries must have the tools to produce Covid vaccine on home soil and ramp up production if we want to have a truly effective global vaccine strategy. That means they have access to the vaccine patents. I urge Boris Johnson to do the right thing and stop blocking the intellectual property waiver temporarily to allow developing nations to make vaccines themselves. This is a matter of global leadership. With over 100 states including the USA supporting the plan, it is clear that the UK is becoming increasingly isolated in blocking access to vaccines around the world. It is the least that the UK government can do after it brutally slashed aid and hindered humanitarian projects around the world. New variants could appear until we reach vaccine equality, until the emergence of the new Omicron variant. Therefore, it is in everyone's interests that we share vaccine patents, it will be an essential step in beating Covid-19.