The High Commissioner on Wednesday had his virtual visit to Mumbai where he discussed the coronavirus vaccine development and strengthening ties with India

The Covid-19 vaccines which are under trial will be equitably distributed in the world, said the new High Commissioner of UK in India, Sir Philip Barton in an interview with The Indian Express.

“We don’t know which vaccine is going to work as trials are still going on but the one that at the moment looks promising is the Oxford University vaccine which will be manufactured with the Serum Institute (of India),” Barton was quoted as saying in the interview.

Talking about the distribution of the vaccine, he added, “this is a global pandemic and vaccines must be for everybody.”

Barton mentioned that recently they had a roundtable conference with Professor K Vijay Raghwan, principal scientific advisor to the Indian government, in which they discussed the technology that is needed to safely deliver vaccines. He further emphasized on the close collaboration between India and the UK in the time of the pandemic in the interview.

Talking about the time it would take to deliver vaccines, Barton said in the interview that the process of manufacturing will take a certain amount of time and no specific date can be given.

Asked about the developments of The Free Trade Agreement between India and the UK, the High commissioner mentioned a recent virtual meeting UK’s international trade secretary Liz Truss and India’s commerce minister Piyush Goyal. The two countries look forward to deepening the trade-investment partnership, he said in The Indian Express interview.

Read the complete report in The Indian Express