Premier Li to address global vaccine summit in a virtual conference

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will address a global vaccine summit in a video conference on Thursday, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Britain will hold the Global Vaccine Summit 2020 on accelerating the development of a vaccine for the COVID-19 on June 4, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said last month. He said, "diseases have no borders so we must come together to make sure that @gavi is fully funded and its expertise is at the heart of efforts to secure broad access to any COVID-19 vaccine."

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will speak at the event.

GAVI is an international vaccine alliance. The UK seeks to raise at least 7.4 billion U.S. dollars on the event to cover the GAVI's work over the next five years.

Pledges have been received from many countries, including the UK, the United States, Norway, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Spain.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said late Wednesday that Premier Li would make a speech at the summit, without giving more details.

Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the opening of the 73rd World Health Assembly, pledging to make China-developed vaccine to "a global public good."

"COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, will be made a global public good. This will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries," Xi said.

Xi also pledged to donate 2 billion U.S. dollars over two years to help with COVID-19 response and with economic and social development in affected countries, especially developing countries.

Globally, there were more than 6.3 million COVID-19 cases as of Friday, and more than 380,000 deaths.