Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department has provided support for the (a) staffing of vaccine centres abroad and (b) training of those staff in the context of the supply of vaccines to developing countries.

The UK has deployed over 130 emergency medical experts from the UK Emergency Medical Team (UK EMT) to over 17 countries throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These teams have provided training and capacity building on COVID-19 infection, prevention, and control to national health workers alongside providing clinical care to COVID-19 patients as required.

UK support for delivering vaccinations has been channelled through our investments in multilateral partners. The UK is one of the largest donors to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). Our £548 million commitment will support the COVAX AMC to deliver up to 1.8 billion vaccine doses for up to 92 low and middle-income countries. The COVAX Facility is a multilateral mechanism that pools resources to accelerate the development, manufacture, and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX and its Alliance partners work closely with governments to ensure robust and transparent distribution and reporting plans are in place to ensure priority groups are reached.