Former British prime minister Gordon Brown has said there is a "desperate need" to get vaccines to Africa as quickly as possible, warning that it could otherwise become a "centre for Covid".
Mr Brown, who has been appointed an ambassador for global health financing by the World Health Organization, is calling for a concerted global effort to save lives, especially in poorer countries, to help end the pandemic.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne programme, Mr Brown said lives were being put at risk by vaccines being hoarded, adding that 100 million vaccines are due to expire by December across Europe, America and in Canada and if they are not used, they will have to be thrown away.
"They're in the western countries that over-ordered and are now overstocked for vaccines," he said.
Mr Brown said about 300 million doses are ready to be transported somewhere else, but are lying in warehouses or on order for delivery at the moment.
"By next month it will be 500 million, by the end of the year a billion extra vaccines that will not be used in the West, even if we do boosters and even if we vaccinate the over 12s, so they ought to get to the people who need them".
Read more: Latest coronavirus stories
He said that only 2% of Africa's population and only 2% of people in low-income countries are vaccinated, and called for unused vaccines to be distributed where they are needed.
He warned that Covid-19 will spread in Africa, it will mutate, and there will be new variants.
"We've been stockpiling vaccines, we've got a mountain of vaccines in America and in Europe, they're not going to be used even when we do the boosters and the 12 to 15-year-olds," he said.
He added: "There are still millions of vaccines left over and we've got to get them to the rest of the world, otherwise they are going to pass their use-by date and expire, and be of no use to anybody, and all of us hate waste."
He said: "My plan is that this month we could transfer 300 million vaccines, that's from America and Europe, by next month it could be 500 million and by December a billion, and so we need to get all the resources at our disposal to airlift them to get them out to the countries that need them, get the vaccinations happening and provide some support."
Mr Brown said he fears that unless this action is taken then Africa could become the "centre for Covid" and "if in future you have new variants and mutations coming out of Africa, then it really will hurt the rest of the world".
He said he believed the entire world could be vaccinated by next summer, if developed nations help in the roll-out elsewhere.
He said there are enough vaccines now to meet the targets in Africa and low-income countries over the coming month and by May next year, the whole world could be vaccinated.
He said it's in everybody's interest that that happens, because "if Africa becomes the centre for Covid, as is quite likely, then we will have new mutations, new variants, they will come back to haunt us, not just in Africa, but in countries where people are fully vaccinated, because that vaccine may be no protection against the new mutations that are likely to happen".
"To allow this disease to spread uninhibited, in the poorest countries of the world and to leave people unprotected against it, is really a crime against humanity and it cannot be allowed to continue".
He said Covax, a programme backed by the WHO, to distribute vaccines worldwide, is not working because not enough vaccines are being passed to it.
He said Covax wants to order vaccines from the manufacturer but Canada, America, Britain and Europe have preferential contracts, adding: "Covax is being denied the vaccines it wants, because these surplus vaccines are going to Western countries".
