China has urged the world's wealthiest countries to play a bigger part in helping the rest of the world battle COVID-19 after the G-7 nations pledged to give away 870 million vaccine doses over the next year.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres had said the figure, which rises to 1 billion doses when including funding promises, was too low. Former British prime minister Gordon Brown described it as an "unforgivable moral failure." The total global requirement is put at around 11 billion doses.

China's embassy in the UK, which was the host nation for the G7 meeting, issued a statement calling for additional efforts.

"We hope that the developed countries will provide more assistance and support to developing ones, and that the relevant countries will actually deliver their pledge of assistance," the embassy statement said. 

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While vaccinating its own population, China has already sent 350 million doses around the world to 43 different countries on top of $2 billion of funding to support developing nations battle the virus. It has also underpinned global protective equipment supplies and testing systems, shipping at least 280 billion masks and 4 billion kits.

"China sets great store by international cooperation in response to COVID-19. While striving to put the pandemic under effective control at home, China has mounted a massive global humanitarian operation," the statement from the embassy in London noted.

However, Boris Johnson said at a press conference in Cornwall, England, where he hosted leaders including U.S. president Joe Biden and German's Angela Merkel that if a target was met to vaccinate the entire world by the end of next year it would be "very largely thanks to the efforts of the countries who have come here today." China was not represented at the meeting.