Social

Home page

Social

Meeting on bringing AstraZeneca vaccine to Azerbaijan held

30 March 2021 20:01 (UTC +04:00)

On March 30, Chairman of Board of Azerbaijan's State Agency for Compulsory Medical Insurance Zaur Aliyev has met with Rosie Greaves General manager on Communication of the GAVI ( Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) organization, and Edward Carwardine, UNICEF Representative in Azerbaijan in an online format, the Agency told APA.

Rosie Greaves said that given the epidemiological situation in Azerbaijan, which was one of the first countries to start vaccination against coronavirus infection, and at the same time the shortage of vaccines in the initial stage, Azerbaijan is scheduled to be vaccinated in April.

Chairman of the Board of the Agency Z.Aliyev considered this argument unfounded and said that this issue was not mentioned in the agreements with COVAX. According to him, the Republic of Azerbaijan was one of the first 50 countries to appreciate the initiative of the COVAX platform to develop vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and join this cooperation.

Fair distribution of vaccines among the countries of the world is an important component for effective cooperation in the fight against pandemics:"Azerbaijan, in addition to acting in accordance with the recommendations of the World Health Organization from the first day, has contributed to the cooperation in the fight against COVID-19, has fulfilled all obligations related to the COVAX platform. Also, all the necessary infrastructure related to the vaccination process has been created in Azerbaijan. However, there are delays in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to our country through the COVAX platform."

Rosie Greaves said that at the initial stage, 84,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine belonging to AstraZeneca from Korea will be sent to Azerbaijan on April 5: “The vaccine will be delivered to the country in about 5-6 days. In addition, 218,790 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will be distributed to Azerbaijan within 8 weeks."

It should be noted that a total of 432,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine belonging to AstraZeneca are expected to be imported to the Republic of Azerbaijan by the end of May.

At the end of the meeting, the chairman of the Agency Z.Aliyev expressed hope that the COVAX platform will remain committed to its obligations to Azerbaijan and ensure the delivery of the vaccine promised to our country on the stated date.