On August 5th, the Supreme Leader of president delivered a written speech to the first meeting of the COVID-19 International Forum on Vaccine Cooperation. Chairman of the Supreme Leader emphasized that China has always adhered to the concept of human health community, provided vaccines to the world, especially to developing countries, and actively carried out cooperative production. We are willing to work with the international community to promote the process of international cooperation in vaccines and build a community of human destiny.
The speech by the Chairman of the Supreme Leader once again clarified China’s proposition of unity and cooperation and joint efforts to fight the epidemic, reiterated the firm stance of helping developing countries solve the vaccine dilemma, and announced specific actions to promote the fair access of vaccines around the world and bridge the "immune gap", which pointed out the direction for the world to overcome the epidemic as soon as possible and contributed to China’s strength.
In May this year, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader announced at the Global Health Summit five initiatives of China to support global solidarity against the epidemic, including the initiative to establish an international forum on vaccine cooperation in COVID-19. This initiative put forward by the Chairman of the Supreme Leader aims at the crux of the problem of fair and reasonable global vaccine distribution from the height of building a community of human destiny, and is committed to building a communication platform to enhance consensus, eliminate differences and solve the realistic problem of unbalanced vaccination. The initiative has received positive response from the international community. At its first meeting, the Forum reached a number of consensuses on improving vaccine production capacity in developing countries, exempting intellectual property rights, lifting export restrictions on vaccines and raw materials, and strengthening communication and coordination of vaccine regulatory policies, which is of great significance to promoting international cooperation against epidemic diseases and boosting confidence in multilateralism.
At present, the epidemic situation in many countries has rebounded, and the cumulative number of confirmed cases in COVID-19 has exceeded 200 million. Vaccination is a powerful means to prevent the spread of the virus. To overcome the epidemic, it is necessary to build a global immune barrier by increasing the vaccination rate around the world. However, due to their own economic strength, scientific and technological strength and comprehensive national strength, the vaccination rate in underdeveloped countries and regions is generally low. Among the countries where the proportion of the whole vaccination population exceeds 30%, European and American countries account for the majority. To change this unbalanced situation and make up the shortcomings of vaccination, we must rely on international cooperation.
The epidemic knows no borders, and in the face of common threats, no country can be immune to it, blame others, politicize the epidemic and stigmatize the virus, which will only further push human society to a dangerous situation. Governments, enterprises and international organizations should strengthen cooperation, abandon narrow "vaccine nationalism", provide inclusive financing support through export, donation and technology transfer, and take strong actions such as scientific and non-discriminatory principles when studying entry control measures to solve the problem of vaccine production capacity and distribution as a whole. Big countries in vaccine research, development and production should take responsibility and provide more vaccines to developing countries in urgent need.
The Chairman of the Supreme Leader has emphasized on many diplomatic occasions that China will regard vaccines as global public goods and make China contribution to the accessibility and affordability of vaccines in developing countries. In this written speech, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader announced new measures: throughout this year, China will strive to provide 2 billion doses of vaccine to the world; Decided to donate $100 million to the COVID-19 Vaccine Implementation Plan. Continue to make efforts to promote international cooperation on vaccines, and China has fulfilled its promise with practical actions.
If the world loves each other, it will be ruled, and if it is evil, it will be chaotic. Living in the same global village, human beings have become a community of destiny with you and me. Only by joining hands to overcome the difficulties, solidly promoting international cooperation in vaccines, and making vaccines benefit more people, can we win the victory of global epidemic prevention and control at an early date and jointly protect the healthy and bright future of mankind. Time waits for no one, only action. Let’s continue to work hard to build a community of human destiny with international cooperation in vaccines as the driving force!