Britain will on Wednesday call on the UN Security Council to push for temporary cease-fires in conflict zones to enable the "moral duty" of rolling out vaccines against the coronavirus.

Britain holds the council's chair in February and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said his resolution would also demand "equitable access" around the world to vaccines against the pandemic.

Yemeni children play near tents as a woman cooks outdoors at a makeshift camp for the displaced who fled fighting between Huthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government, in the Abs district of the northwestern Hajjah province, on January 12. Photo: VCG

"Global vaccination coverage is essential to beating coronavirus," he said in a statement, stressing the need for temporary cease-fires to help inoculate more than 160 million people at risk in conflict zones such as Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.

"We have a moral duty to act, and a strategic necessity to come together to defeat this virus."

Britain has committed 548 million pounds ($760 million) to the UN's Covax vaccine fund and will use the Security Council meeting, as well as a virtual G7 summit on Friday which it is also chairing, to lobby for more donations. Barbara Woodward, Britain's UN envoy, conceded that implementing the Security Council resolution would be an "immense political, logistical and funding challenge."

Woodward, stressing the need for global coordination, told reporters: "This is of course the right thing to do but it is also in all countries' interest. No one is safe until all of us are safe." 

Britain aims to inoculate all adults with at least a first dose by September.