Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many COVAX covid-19 vaccination doses the Government has (a) purchased to date and (b) plans to purchase in the next 12 months.

The Government is a strong champion of COVAX – the international initiative to procure and distribute Covid vaccines equitably, including to both higher and lower income countries.

The UK has invested £71 million in the Self-Financing Facility of COVAX, which enables high and upper-middle income countries to pool investments in potential vaccine candidates. This gives us the option to buy vaccines for up to 20% of the UK population - approximately 27 million doses.

We are committed to purchasing approximately 0.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine through COVAX.

The Government has separately committed £548 million to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, which will distribute 1.3 billion doses of vaccines to developing countries this year as part of COVAX’s overall objective of procuring and delivering 2 billion doses globally.