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Boris Johnson will announce a 30% increase in funding to the World Health Organization from the UK, making the UK the largest national donor after the US departure.
In an announcement at the UN General Assembly, he will urge him to heal “the nasty fissures” that are damaging the international fight against the coronavirus.
While Trump has denounced the WHO as corrupt and under the influence of China, Johnson will announce £ 340 million in UK funding over the next four years, an increase of 30%. It will also suggest that the body be given greater powers to demand reports on how countries are handling a pandemic.
The proposals will be part of a British vision, developed in conjunction with the Gates Foundation, of how future health pandemics, including ‘zoonotic laboratories’ capable of identifying potentially dangerous pathogens in animals before they are transmitted to animals, could be better controlled. humans.
Johnson’s pre-recorded video, on the last main day of the UN General Assembly and four days after most of the world’s leaders have spoken, comes to the end of a week in which China and the United States have argued over responsibility. of the virus. Both have refused to join the WHO effort to find a global coronavirus vaccine, preferring a national approach.
Johnson will say: “After nine months of fighting Covid, the very notion of the international community seems in tatters. We know that we cannot continue in this way. Unless we unite and turn our fire against our common enemy, we know that everyone will lose.
“Now is the time, therefore, here in what I fervently hope to be the first and last Zoom UNGA in history, for humanity to cross borders and repair these ugly fissures. Here in the UK, the birthplace of Edward Jenner, who pioneered the world’s first vaccine, we are determined to do everything in our power to work with our friends at the UN to heal those divisions and heal the disease. world “.
Earlier this week at the UN, he said that the coronavirus “came out of left field, humanity was caught sleeping, let’s face it, we were woefully ill-prepared.”
The extra money from the UK comes ahead of the WHO board meeting next week where a joint Franco-German document calling for more reliable, larger and less conditional funding from the WHO will be discussed.
The UK’s contribution will be set at £ 340 million over the next four years, making it the most generous state contributor, Downing Street said. While the United States is currently the largest funder, if Trump is reelected president, he will retire next summer, taking with him up to $ 900 million in voluntary and mandatory contributions over two years.
In addition to funding increases designed to help multilateral agencies and ensure the equitable distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, once discovered, Johnson will also call for new pandemic early warning systems, new global protocols for health crises. and the elimination of trade barriers.
The WHO has launched an internal investigation into its handling of the pandemic, including China’s role in informing the WHO that the virus is on the loose in the country.
Johnson will also use his address to announce a significant new investment in Covax, the international coronavirus vaccine procurement group announced in April. The UK will contribute an initial £ 71 million to secure purchasing rights for up to 27 million doses of vaccines for the UK.
It will also announce £ 500 million in aid funding for Covax’s Advanced Market Engagement, a facility to help 92 of the world’s poorest countries access any coronavirus vaccine at the earliest opportunity. The commitment is also designed to assure private manufacturers that they will have a market for their vaccines, ensuring that the necessary research and development takes place. Neither China nor the US have agreed to join Covax, preferring to keep their vaccine research under their own control.
Johnson will use his UN address to call for “a major expansion of our ability to collect and analyze samples and distribute the results, using health data sharing agreements that span all countries.”
His speech does not contain a direct criticism of China’s data sharing at the beginning of the crisis, Downing Street said.
