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More than 100 former prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers are among 230 prominent figures calling on the leaders of the powerful G7 countries to pay two-thirds of the $66bn (£46.6bn) needed to vaccinate low-income countries against Covid, The Guardian reports.

A letter seen by the Guardian ahead of the G7 summit to be hosted by Boris Johnson in Cornwall warns that the leaders of the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada must make 2021 “a turning point in global cooperation”. Fewer than 2% of people in sub-Saharan Africa have been vaccinated against Covid, while the UK has now immunised 70% of its population with at least one dose.

Prominent figures who have signed the letter include former UN secretary general Ban-Ki Moon, former Irish president Mary Robinson and taoiseach Bertie Ahern and 15 former African leaders including presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, John Mahama of Ghana and FW de Klerk of South Africa.

Other signatories include the UK’s former overseas development minister Lynda Chalker, Virgin’s founder Sir Richard Branson, the head of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Jeremy Farrar, Nobel Laureate for economics Bengt Holmström and the economist Lord O’Neill.

They argue that the investment is affordable and vital to stopping the spread of new coronavirus variants that could undermine current vaccines. “The year 2020 witnessed a failure of global cooperation, but 2021 can usher in a new era. No one anywhere is safe from Covid-19 until everyone is safe everywhere,” they say.

“Support from the G7 and G20 that makes vaccines readily accessible to low and middle-income countries is not an act of charity, but rather is in every country’s strategic interest, and as described by the IMF [International Monetary Fund] is ‘the best public investment in history’.”

The signatories of the letter say that polling suggests the public back them. A survey commissioned by Save the Children found that 79% of people in the UK who have a view think the G7 should pay to make the world safe. Across five countries – the US, France, Germany and Canada as well as the UK – leaving out the “don’t knows”, more than 70% thought their country should pay its share.