THE government said today that it would make the developing Covid-19 vaccine available to “developing countries at the lowest possible cost.”

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said “the UK will be first to get access” to a new vaccine currently being trialled, but that ministers will ensure that poorer countries can easily buy it.

Speaking at the daily Downing Street press conference, Mr Sharma said that the first clinical trial for a vaccine at the University of Oxford is progressing well.

He added that all phase one participants have received their vaccine dose on schedule earlier this week in “complex” trials that have been designed and organised at an “unprecedented” speed.

Mr Sharma said that Imperial College London was also “making good progress” and would look to move into clinical trials for a vaccine by mid-June, with larger scale trials in October.

He said so far the government had invested £47 million in the Oxford and Imperial vaccine programmes, and announced a further £84m in new funding “to help accelerate their work.”

Mr Sharma added that the new money would help “mass-produce the Oxford vaccine” so that if “current trials are successful we have dosages to start vaccinating the UK population straight away.”

He said that pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca had finalised a “global licensing agreement” with Oxford University with government support.

Mr Sharma continued: “This means that if the vaccine is successful AstraZeneca will work to make 30 million doses available by September for the UK as part of an agreement for over 100 million doses in total.”

Mr Sharma has announced that Britain’s first vaccines manufacturing innovation centre is expected to open in summer 2021, a year ahead of schedule at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

During the press briefing, he announced up to £93m more for the centre to ensure it opens next summer and produces “enough vaccine doses to serve the entire UK population in as little as six months.”