Azerbaijan publicly condemned actions of some countries which purchase several times more vaccines than their actual needs and deprive developing countries from protecting their populations, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in his speech at the closing ceremony of the 74-th videoconference session of the highest governing body of the World Health Organization – the World Health Assembly titled “Ending the current pandemic and preventing the next one by building a healthier, safer and fairer world”, QİA.AZ reports.
“The persisting “vaccine nationalism” and deepening inequality in access to vaccines between developing and developed countries are disturbing. According to international reports, so far, more than 82 percent of the world’s vaccine doses have been purchased by wealthy countries, while only 0.3 percent have gone to low-income countries.”
“To address this challenge, Azerbaijan, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, initiated a resolution on ensuring equitable, universal access for all countries to vaccines in the UN Human Rights Council, which was unanimously adopted this March,” the president said.
“We strongly encourage developed countries and international donor organizations to support developing, in particular least developed countries to this end,” the president said.