Boris Johnson will lay out plans to make the UK one of the biggest funders of both the World Health Organisation and its vaccine procurement facility, in a set of measures intended to show Britain taking a bigger role in the international fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The UK plans to commit a total of £571m to the WHO’s Covax programme, designed to facilitate the equitable distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine around the world, according to a government statement released ahead of Mr Johnson’s planned speech to the UN General Assembly on Saturday. That commitment will be split between £71m to secure purchase rights for up to 27m vaccine doses for Britain and £500m in aid funding to help 92 of the world’s poorest countries also access doses.
In addition, Mr Johnson will use the speech to announce that Britain has pledged £340m in funding to the WHO…