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* First duty is shots for children before those abroad -
Hancock
* G7 health ministers meeting comes ahead of leaders' summit
* UK's Hancock: vaccine waiver not needed to boost global
supply
(Adds detail, further quotes)
By Alistair Smout
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.
Britain's medicine regulator on Friday approved
Pfizer/BioNTech's vaccine for use in 12-15 year
olds, but global health bodies warn that if rich countries
prioritise low-risk members of their own populations over
broadening access globally, they risk disaster.
Asked he would prioritise vaccinating teenagers over more
vulnerable people globally, Hancock said: "My first duty as
health secretary for the UK is to make sure that the UK is
protected and safe."
"Whilst thankfully children are very rarely badly affected
by COVID themselves, they can still pass on the disease, and so
that is my first duty," Hancock told Reuters 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."
BRITISH ARMS
Hancock had hosted health ministers from the Group of Seven
(G7) rich countries met at the University of Oxford, where
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine was invented, ahead of a
G7 leaders' meeting next week.
The ministers agreed a new set of standards to improve
clinical trials, as well as support for vaccine donations when
domestic circumstances allowed.
U.S. President Joe Biden outlined plans to share 25 million
surplus vaccines globally on Thursday, while France also said it
would donate doses to Senegal.
But although Britain has given a first COVID-19 vaccine to
three-quarters of adults, and fully vaccinated half the adult
population, Hancock said the country was not yet in a position
to donate doses.
Britain has ordered over 500 million doses of COVID-19
vaccine for its population of 67 million, most of which are
two-shot vaccines.
"As and when the UK has excess doses of vaccine, then, if we
don't need them, we'll make sure they're available to others,"
Hancock said.
"But at the moment we don't have any excess doses, because
as soon as the doses are available for the UK, we get them
injected into British arms."
Biden has also voiced support for a vaccine patent waiver to
boost vaccine production and allow more equitable distribution
of shots, but 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
globally.
"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."
(Reporting by Alistair Smout in Oxford, additional reporting by
William James and Paul Sandle in London; editing by Michael
Holden)
