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OXFORD, England, June 4 (Reuters) - Britain's Health
Secretary Matt Hancock said on Friday vaccinating children in
the United Kingdom against COVID-19 would take priority over
donating vaccine doses to other countries around the world.
"My first duty as health secretary for the UK is to make
sure that the UK is protected and safe, and whilst thankfully
children are very rarely badly affected by COVID themselves,
they can still pass on the disease," Hancock said after a
meeting of G7 healthcare ministers in Oxford, central England.
"Alongside that I'm working with my international colleagues
to make sure that people can get access to the vaccine around
the world, and in particular of course the Oxford vaccine."
Hancock was speaking after health ministers from the Group
of Seven (G7) rich countries met at the University of Oxford,
where AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine was invented, and
which comes ahead of a leaders meeting next week.
One topic of contention is U.S. President Joe Biden's
support for a vaccine patent waiver to boost vaccine production
and allow more equitable distribution. Britain and some European
countries have expressed reservations.
Hancock said Britain had already taken a huge step by making
the Oxford AstraZeneca shot available at cost, citing how half a
billion doses of the vaccine had already been delivered with the
majority going to low and middle income countries.
"The truth is you don't need an IP waiver in order to
deliver vaccines, without any charge for the intellectual
property rights, you can just get on and do it," Hancock said.
"It doesn't need us to change the intellectual property
rules because they are important rules for future investment in
future vaccines for instance, against variants and flu and all
the other things we need to vaccinate against."
(Reporting by Alistair Smout in Oxford, additional reporting by
William James in London, Writing by Paul Sandle; editing by
Michael Holden)