Gordon Brown calls for international military airlift of unused COVID vaccines

Gordon Brown is calling on the UK, US, the EU and Canada to launch an emergency airlift of 240 million COVID jabs from unused stocks to the vaccine-starved countries of the global south.

The former Prime Minister says countries' military aircraft and ground support could be mobilised within days of world leaders signing off the "biggest peacetime public policy decision to prevent avoidable deaths".

The initiative "could save 100,000 lives," said Mr Brown.

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It would mean an "unparalleled distribution" of jabs to 92 low-income countries, where only 5% of the population has been vaccinated.

An October airlift would be the first stage in a plan, drawn up by Mr Brown, for the transfer of 1.1 billion unused vaccines from the global north to the global south in the next few months.

Mr Brown is pressing current UK leader Boris Johnson, US President Joe Biden, the European Commission's Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian premier Justin Trudeau to hold an emergency summit as soon as possible to agree to the airlift.

The former Prime Minister said: "While vaccines have been pledged, we are not getting the vaccines into people's arms quickly enough or on sufficient scale, and with vaccines stockpiled in the west we urgently need a timetable to prevent avoidable loss of lives.

"An immediate emergency airlift of 240 million vaccines this month from the global north to the global south should be followed by the transfer of a further 760 million vaccines by February.

"If we do not use the stockpiled vaccines, many, perhaps 100 million, will go to waste when they pass their use by dates and expire.

"This initiative – the biggest peacetime public policy decision to prevent avoidable deaths – could save 100,000 lives and prevent many of the one million COVID-induced deaths projected over the next few months."