President Aliyev hails Azerbaijan’s efforts to fight COVID-19

By Azernews

By Aisha Jabbarova

President Ilham Aliyev has praised the Azerbaijani government’s efforts to minimize negative impact of COVID-19 and to keep the situation under control.

Addressing the 74th session of World Health Assembly in a video format on May 31, Aliyev said that 13 modular hospitals and one regular hospital have been built in the country since the outbreak of the pandemic, with the total number of beds designated to treat COVID patients exceeding 10,000.

At the same time, the socio-economic stimulus package worth almost $2 billion has been released in order to support COVID-affected people and business, the president said, stressing that comprehensive measures have resulted in easing of the quarantine regime in the country.

Furthermore, the president said that two million vaccine dozes have been administered on Azerbaijani citizen, the figure that constitutes 20 percent of the total population.

Aliyev reminded that Azerbaijan launched immunization campaign since mid-January this year using 99.94 percent “Sinovac” vaccines and the rest AstraZeneca and Sputnik vaccines.

He also spoke about Azerbaijan’s fight against COVID-19 in the international scale, reminding that his country made voluntary financial contributions to the World Health Organization in the amount of $10 million and provided humanitarian and financial assistance to more than 30 countries with regard to coronavirus.

Azerbaijan also initiated a number of global initiatives, in particular the holding of the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in May 2020, and convening the Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly at the level of the heads of state and government in December 2020 which was supported by more than 150 States, Aliyev said.

"We welcome the designation of 2021 as the Year of Health and Care Workers," the president said. "Azerbaijan has very fruitful cooperation with the World Health Organization. Last year, the World Health Organization hailed Azerbaijan as an exemplary country in fighting the pandemic."

Aliyev also spoke about “vaccine nationalism” and deepening inequality in access to vaccines between developing and developed countries.

He reminded international reports according to which over 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.