A member of the public prepares to receive a coronavirus vaccination at a surge vaccine operation set up at Twickenham rugby stadium, south-west London, May 31, 2021. (DOMINIC LIPINSKI / PA VIA AP)

LONDON－At the G7 summit starting on Friday Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson will urge leaders to commit to vaccinating the whole world against coronavirus by the end of next year, Downing Street said on Saturday, after a failure to break new ground at a meeting of the G7 health ministers a day earlier.

The United Kingdom is to host the event in Cornwall, southwestern England, with leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States attending.

Johnson will call on fellow G7 leaders to make concrete commitments to "vaccinate the entire world against coronavirus by the end of 2022", a Downing Street statement said.

However, facing growing calls to ensure fairer global distribution of vaccines, the G7 health ministers at a meeting on Friday failed to break new ground, reiterating previous commitments to share doses through COVAX "as soon as possible"

"Vaccinating the world by the end of next year would be the single greatest feat in medical history," Johnson was quoted as saying.

Downing Street pointed to the British government's successes in backing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and making it available at cost price worldwide, as well as its support for the COVAX scheme.

However, facing growing calls to ensure fairer global distribution of vaccines, the G7 health ministers at a meeting on Friday failed to break new ground, reiterating previous commitments to share doses through COVAX "as soon as possible".

Britain's efficient vaccine distribution has caused cases and admissions to hospital to fall greatly, but some experts warn that rising numbers of cases of the new Delta variant could threaten this progress.

The variant first identified in India is reportedly more easily transmitted and more likely to cause serious illness.

Cases of the virus in the UK have recently begun rising more steeply, even though 27 million adults have received both doses.

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Britain has the highest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, at over 128,000 on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Record doses in Italy

Countries are speeding up their vaccine distribution. In Italy a record 600,000 doses were administered on Friday, putting the country in second place in Europe for the number of people fully vaccinated.

According to the country's government, 37.06 million doses have been administered and 12.7 million people, or nearly 24 percent of the population aged above 12, have been vaccinated.

In Hungary, 54 percent of the population of about 10 million has received a first dose of a vaccine and 38 percent is fully vaccinated.

Hungary became a European Union leader in COVID-19 vaccinations after securing shots from Russia and China as well as from Western pharmaceutical companies that had deals with the EU.

Globally, inoculations against the coronavirus have reached 2 billion as the world races to contain the pandemic, but Bloomberg said that at the current pace it will take nine more months to vaccinate 75 percent of the global population needed to provide herd immunity.

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Vaccination distribution has been uneven, mainly benefiting the developed world even as lower-income countries have struggled to obtain shots. The wealthiest 27 countries have administered about 29 percent of vaccinations globally but have only 10 percent of the world's population, Bloomberg said.

Agencies - Xinhua