Gordon Brown hits out at EU’s ‘neocolonial approach’ to Covid vaccine supplies

Rich countries should ‘end their stranglehold’ on available vaccines, former PM says

Gordon Brown is urging world leaders to address vaccine inequality. (Getty Images)

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has criticised the EU for its “neocolonial” approach to Covid-19 vaccine procurement, as wealthy countries continue to benefit from the majority of the world’s supply.

The ex-Labour leader’s rebuke comes as more than half of Europeans have been double-jabbed, compared to under 2 per cent of Africa’s population.

Given this imbalance, it is "shocking, unfair and bordering on the neo-colonial ‘’ that Africa is still exporting millions of jabs to Europe, Mr Brown said.

Citing his research, he claimed 10 million Johnson and Johnson doses would be sent from a factory in South Africa to the EU in the next few months, at a time of increased coronavirus deaths in Africa.

Mr Brown has called on world leaders such as Joe Biden and Boris Johnson to address vaccine inequality at a UN meeting in September.

He reiterated that no country is safe unless global mass vaccination is achieved, urging countries with surplus doses to “end their stranglehold on the available vaccines”.

"The biggest threat we all face comes from Covid spreading and mutating uninhibited in poor unvaccinated countries,” he said.

As well as stopping their supply monopoly, rich countries should waive vaccine patents to allow doses to be manufactured in more African countries, the former prime minister added.

His comments follow the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s warning last month that the global economy is increasingly split between the vaccine haves and have-nots.

“Multilateral action is needed to ensure rapid, worldwide access to vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. This would save countless lives, prevent new variants from emerging, and add trillions of dollars to global economic growth,” the IMF’s chief economist Gita Gopinath said.

Elsewhere, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, has described vaccine inequality as the “biggest obstacle to ending this pandemic and recovering from Covid-19”.

Additional reporting by PA