Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will take steps with vaccine manufacturers to enable countries in the Global South to manufacture vaccines developed in the Global North.

The UK provided early support for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, guaranteeing not-for-profit availability globally, and saving millions of lives. AstraZeneca and its partners, including in low- and middle-income countries, have made over one billion doses available to more than 170 countries.

We continue to foster initiatives to expand vaccine manufacturing, and our support to business cases for vaccine manufacturing in Senegal, South Africa, and Morocco has helped catalyse investment that will see COVID-19 vaccines produced on the African continent in 2022. We are engaging with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing to develop their roadmap for African vaccine manufacturing. We welcome the World Health Organisation's approval of new and innovative vaccines from manufacturers across both developed and emerging economies, including through partnerships led by AstraZeneca. These approved vaccines are all contributing to expanding the sustainable global supply, including through COVAX, needed to accelerate equitable access to safe, effective, affordable, and quality vaccines, and to develop innovations that tackle new variants.