Envoy: Major powers should help rest of world get vaccinated

Major powers should commit to providing vaccines to low and middle-income countries and help them ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang said at a virtual ministerial meeting on the pandemic on Wednesday.

Speaking as a representative of Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, Qin said China firmly supports developing countries in fighting the pandemic and has provided them with a large number of medical supplies.

He noted that Chinese President Xi Jinping has underscored on many occasions that vaccines should be made a global public good, and he has proposed a Global Vaccine Cooperation Action Initiative, calling for fair distribution of vaccines globally, equal treatment of different vaccines, and mutual recognition of vaccines in accordance with the World Health Organization's Emergency Use Listing.

"We should translate consensus that vaccines are a global public good into concrete actions to ensure their fair and equitable distribution," Xi told a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Thursday.

At Wednesday's online ministerial meeting hosted by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Qin said China has so far provided more than 1.7 billion doses of finished and bulk vaccines to at least 100 countries and will provide a total of 2 billion doses within this year.

"We have supplied over 70 million doses of vaccines and donated US$100 million to COVAX," Qin said, referring to the global initiative led by the WHO to ensure equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines around the world.

"Vaccine supply should be maximized through a combination of donation, commercial purchases, joint production and other means," he added.

More than 99 percent of vaccines China has provided for the world have been shipped to other developing countries, and in September, President Xi announced that China would donate 100 million doses of vaccines to other developing countries by the end of this year, according to Qin.

In addition, China has launched an Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on COVID-19 Vaccines Cooperation with 30 countries and is conducting joint vaccine production with 19 developing countries.

Qin said solidarity and cooperation is the most powerful weapon to defeat COVID-19, and countries must take a scientific attitude, and oppose stigmatization and politicization.

"Major countries need to earnestly shoulder their responsibilities in taking the lead in providing vaccines to low- and mid-income countries quickly and help them build up production of vaccines," he said.

Speaking at the virtual meeting, Blinken said there is an emergent need to accelerate the equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide, given that in North America, in Europe, more than half the population is fully vaccinated, while in Africa, less than 10 percent of the population is.  

"We've got to close that gap.  We support the WHO's goal to vaccinate at least 70 percent of the world by next September, in every country and every income category with quality, safe and effective vaccines," he said.

Blinken announced a deal to bring COVID-19 vaccines into conflict zones, where people cannot be reached by government vaccination campaigns.

Globally, there have been more than 250 million COVID-19 cases, with around 5 million deaths, according to the WHO.