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Unless the majority of the world’s population is vaccinated, new variants of the deadly virus are likely to continue emerging and cause more waves of global infections. In an open letter published in The Daily Telegraph, the heads of the World Health Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organisation argued for more equitable vaccine access. They wrote: “Inequitable vaccine distribution is not only leaving untold millions of people vulnerable to the virus.
“It is also allowing deadly variants to emerge and ricochet back across the world.”
Their warning comes as a cross-party group of more than 100 UK MPs called on Boris Johnson to show “global leadership” in combatting the pandemic in the run up to next week’s G7 summit in Cornwall.
Parliamentarians urged the Prime Minister to donate one dose of Covid vaccine to the United Nations-backed Covax scheme for every dose purchased for the UK.
They said: “The longer we wait to act, the more likely it is that dangerous variants could emerge that can evade the protections offered by current vaccines.”
The Covax scheme aims to provide Covid jabs to at least 20 percent of the population of the 92 countries taking part.
These include low-income countries such as Algeria, Malawi and Uganda in Africa, Iran and Iraq in the Middle East, and Barbados, El Salvador and Nicaragua in the Americas.
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Professor Ravi Gupta from Cambridge University called on the Government to delay ending Covid restrictions in England on June 21.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Of course the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment – all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive.
“So the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.”
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