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LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Britain is better prepared for another pandemic than for Covid-19, the former head of Britain’s vaccine taskforce said on Wednesday, criticizing how some of the infrastructure that helped it recover from the pandemic had been dismantled. . .
Britain has the world’s highest coronavirus death toll with more than 177,000 deaths, although its rapid procurement and deployment of vaccines has helped the government lift lockdown restrictions earlier than some others.
Kate Bingham, Britain’s covid vaccine recipient in 2020, said there was now no leadership to prepare for potential new variants and some production capacity had been mothballed.
“We have the capabilities and yet things that we put in place are being systematically dismantled,” Bingham told lawmakers Wednesday.
“I don’t think we’re in a better place to deal with a new pandemic. I think we’re marginally better.”
Bingham said more work needs to be done to improve the vaccine’s ability to prevent the transmission of new COVID-19 variants, and she doesn’t know why the contract for more vaccines from Moderna, agreed to in June, hasn’t been signed.
“I absolutely welcome the concept of a larger relationship with Moderna to provide and bring both R&D and manufacturing to the UK. So I’m very positive about that. I don’t see that happening,” she said. “It just seems odd that nothing has been signed yet.”
Junior Health Minister Neil O’Brien said closing the deal was difficult as the broader agreement reached with Moderna in June included greater flexibility and open-endedness.
“Because we’re buying a flexible instrument, it’s fundamentally a complex negotiation … we’re very close to finalizing the rest of the details,” O’Brien told lawmakers.
“We’ve agreed to a substantial portion of what needs to be agreed, and we’re now chasing down the detail.”
Reported by Alastair Smout; Edited by William James
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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