What happened: During a conference on Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a declaration rejecting vaccine nationalism. The declaration was supported by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mehmood Qureshi. He stated “We should make collective endeavors to ensure equitable and affordable supply of vaccine to developing countries”
Background: The basic idea of ‘vaccine nationalism’ refers to the governments making an agreement with pharmaceutical companies to supply vaccine doses to their populations before they are provided to other countries. The term particularly refers to governments in the west. A virtual conference was hosted by China on Belt and Road Co-operation and had the motive stress on global cooperation in combating the pandemic. The conference was attended by 30 ministries of different countries. FM Shah Mehmood Qureshi during the conference further spoke that “fruitful cooperation in combating Covid-19 for a timely economic rebound would require sharing experiences and best practices; enhancing the availability, accessibility, and affordability of vaccines through joint research and production; and calling for preferential financing from multilateral development institutions for developing countries.” Click here to see more from ProperGaanda.