China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at a United Nations Security Council conference on vaccination that “cooperation to combat the pandemic should not be an all-or-nothing game.”
Wang Yi rejected that Beijing has “geopolitical goals” when it comes to distributing vaccines to developing countries.
“Vaccines are being developed and produced at record speed, but there are problems that need to be resolved,” he said.
“There is a gap in distribution. Vaccines are rapidly going to high-income countries, but not to developing countries. This will only further exacerbate inequalities,” he said.
Wang Yi called for “fair and reasonable distribution of vaccines” and that countries most in need or in conflict are not left behind.
“China has never had geopolitical goals in the sale of its vaccines. It has never made calculations to benefit economically and it has not established political conditions,” said Wang, quoted today by the Chinese Foreign Ministry website.
The minister also indicated that vaccines should be a “public product accessible in all countries” and that for China it is “imperative” to do everything possible to research, develop and distribute vaccines worldwide.
“China provided assistance to 53 developing countries that requested it and exported vaccines to 22 countries. It also helped to increase global production capacity,” he said.
Beijing also delivered 10 million doses of its vaccines to the Covax mechanism, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO), to “prevent more people from dying from [novo] coronavirus “, added the minister.
According to the official press of the Asian country, vaccines developed by Chinese companies Sinopharm, Sinovac and CanSino are being used in about thirty developing countries in Africa, Asia or Latin America, while in Europe they only reached Serbia and Hungary.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, warned again this week that if the vaccination campaign against covid-19 is not implemented in all countries, the virus will continue to mutate, which could prolong “significantly “the pandemic.
“If the virus spreads like wildfire in the global south, it will mutate again and again. New variants can become more transmissible, more deadly and potentially threaten the effectiveness of current vaccines and diagnostics,” he warned.
The Portuguese recalled that “only 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccines against covid-19. Meanwhile, more than 130 countries have not received a single dose”.
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