[ad_1]
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Mar.27
By Jani Babayeva – Trend:
The situation with both the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is extremely politicized, political scientist, Head of the South Caucasus Club of Political Analysts Ilgar Valizade told Trend.
“No one has doubts that some countries are pursuing an egoistic policy, purchasing vaccines in huge quantities, while other states do not get anything,” said Valizade.
“This, of course, causes indignation, especially since by the initiative of Azerbaijan, in 2020, a special session of the UN General Assembly was held, at which, in particular, the issue of equitable distribution of vaccines was considered. Countries have pledged to help developing, poorer nations, and they are not being met. There are countries that have not received the vaccine at all, this is outrageous,” he said.
“On the other hand, we see how the leading players directly declare that they will not supply vaccines produced on their territory to other states,” the political scientist noted.
“In particular, the US refused to provide vaccines produced on its territory to the European community. The UK has not shipped a single vaccine to the EU, while a big batch of AstraZeneca vaccine has been sent from the EU to this country. This also suggests that even the leading, developed countries of the world are pursuing quite contradictory policies when it comes to equitable distribution of vaccines. Distribution of vaccine through COVAX became hostage to this policy, and today this structure demonstrates its complete failure, inability to solve the main issues related to vaccination. And in this case, this is a message from the WHO, indicating that criticism of the activities of this organization is justified,” Valizade emphasized.
He noted that in this situation an analogy with double standards comes to mind.
“We used to say that double standards apply to politics, and they are unacceptable. But in this case, double standards are applied in relation to humanitarian policy and humanitarian values. How can one demonstrate in words adherence to humanitarian norms, talk about justice, while rhetoric is absolutely at odds with actions?” Valizade said.
He reminded that at the initial stage of the fight against coronavirus, there were not enough personal hygiene products, masks, lung ventilators.
“Leading countries resorted to shameful actions, to outright racketeering, seized goods that went to other states, and disrupted supplies. This is a very sad page in the history of mankind. Now we are seeing the same thing with vaccines: they are not supplied to customers, and, unfortunately, ordinary people suffer. This is evidenced by the increase in infection and mortality,” he said.
[ad_2]
Source link
