Former British Prime Minister Brown says recent vaccine pledges for poor nations were inadequate and a "moral failure"

Former British PM Brown and New Zealand PM Clark say rich nations should send more caccines to the poorer countries. Brown said recent pledges were a  "moral Failure." 

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark says the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to wreak havoc globally unless rich nations "share the burden" and help vaccinate poorer countries.

"If we're to end this pandemic, we need 70 per cent of the global population (according to the head of the World Health Organisation) vaccinated by the time the G7 meets in June next year. On the level of [vaccine] pledge we're seeing, and we're not going to meet that," she said in a webinar last night hosted by the Helen Clark Foundation.

"That means this disease is going to carry on in pandemic phase - which is ghastly. We need to see it coming off the accelerating pandemic, down to the point where it becomes somewhat endemic, and ideally, if more countries follow the approach of New Zealand and Australia - squashing it, eliminating it where it appears - we might even see an end to it one day.

"But the redistribution of existing vaccine orders from the high-income countries like ours is clearly important."  ...

 (Former British Prime Minister Gordon)  Brown said the pledge from the recent G7 meeting to share at least 870 million vaccine doses amounted to a moral failure.

"That's not enough. There are 11 billion doses needed [worldwide]. The money put on the table was about ... US$7 billion at most. We needed US$50 billion to pay for this plan, which includes testing and protective equipment for the poorer countries.

"This was a missed opportunity, but also something of a moral failure because we had this chance here, with all of them together, the richest countries, to do something." ...