Aid offer for 80 countries

Vaccine assistance is first large-scale effort of its kind

BEIJING: China is providing and will offer vaccine assistance to 80 countries and three international organisations, the first large-scale assistance of its kind, the country’s International Development Cooperation Agency said.

The vaccines were being donated to countries from five continents in a timely and orderly manner, including 26 in Asia and 34 in Africa, the agency’s spokesperson Tian Lin said.The country also offered vaccine doses to the African Union, Arab League and United Nations Peacekeepers, Tian said.

China had acted swiftly to donate the vaccine doses, he said, adding that the nation was also providing injection devices to countries facing difficulties.

So far, over 60 countries have authorised the registration or emergency use of Chinese vaccines, and many foreign politicians have been inoculated with Chinese vaccines, including the president and prime minister of Hungary, the Pakistani president and Chile’s president, which Tian said was a vote of confidence in the security and effectiveness of Chinese vaccines.

“We apply the strictest quality control measures to our vaccines and ensure the timely delivery of high-quality vaccines, ” he added.

The moves aimed to implement President Xi Jinping’s promise at the opening of the 73rd session of the World Health Assembly via video link last year that Covid-19 vaccine development and deployment in China, when available, would be made a global public good.

The ongoing aid was provided to ensure that developing countries had fair and timely access to vaccines, and was based on the pandemic situation and specific needs of related countries, Tian said.

China provided the assistance to help developing countries save lives, to which it attached no political strings and had nothing to do with geopolitics, he said.

“China is not a saviour but tries to be a friend in need, a sincere partner to be counted on in times of difficulty, ” he added.

Tian called for efforts to promote the fair distribution of vaccines around the globe.

He noted that while high-income countries had quickly acquired a large number of vaccine doses, there were fewer opportunities for poor nations to obtain vaccines.

He said China firmly opposed selfish behaviour such as hoarding, monopolies and “vaccine nationalism”, and hoped the international community would make more efforts that were conducive to global cooperation in combating the pandemic. — China Daily/ANN

TheStar.com.my, 22 March 2021 (Monday)