by Lucy Fisher and Paul Nuki at The Telegraph (UK)
The world needs a global settlement like that forged after the Second World War to protect countries in the wake of Covid, Boris Johnson and other world leaders have said.
Writing for The Telegraph on Tuesday, Mr Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the virus pandemic had been “a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe”.
Amid growing international tension over vaccine supplies, they called for an end to isolationism and nationalism in favour of a new era of solidarity.
The call by 24 world leaders alongside Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organisation (WHO) chief, is made in The Telegraph and newspapers across the world including Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany.
The leaders said a treaty akin to the settlement forged in the aftermath of the war was needed to build cross-border co-operation ahead of the next international health crisis, describing Covid as “the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s”.
They wrote: “At that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system. The aims were clear – to bring countries together, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and co-operation, namely peace, prosperity, health and security.”
A treaty on pandemics “should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and co-operation within the international system and with its rules and norms”, the leaders said.
The joint article comes in the wake of deepening strain between Britain and the European Union over the production and distribution of Covid vaccines.
The European Commission has threatened to block shipments of potentially millions of AstraZeneca jabs from the company’s Halix plant in the Netherlands to the UK following fury in Brussels about the company falling short in its deliveries so far this year.
On Monday night, Mr Johnson unveiled his latest move to ensure the resilience of the UK’s domestic vaccine supply chains amid the threat of jabs trade wars.
He announced that the Government’s vaccine taskforce had clinched a deal with the British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline to “fill and finish” 60 million doses of the new Novavax vaccine at a plant in Barnard Castle in the North-East.
The agreement removes the need for doses of Novavax – which Mr Johnson called “a potentially significant new weapon in our armoury against Covid” – to be sent to Germany to be put in vials.
A Downing Street source said the move was motivated in part by a desire to pour investment into the UK’s domestic vaccine manufacturing capability, while also making the nation’s vaccine supplies “more secure”.
The Novavax jab has undergone phase three clinical trials and is expected to be approved by the UK medicines regulator in the coming weeks. It is expected that doses will start being processed in the UK from May.
Mr Johnson acknowledged that Monday was a “big day” for many Britons as they were allowed to see friends and family outdoors for the first time since the most recent lockdown began in January.
The Prime Minister stressed…