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Borrell criticizes “broken promises” of China and Russia in delivery of COVID vaccines

This content was published on June 19, 2022 – 21:11

Brussels, June 19 (EFE) .- The High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, lamented this Sunday the “broken promises” of Russia and China in the delivery of vaccines against the coronavirus despite the ” great expectations” that they had raised internationally against the pandemic.

“In short, the vaccine diplomacy of these two countries can be summed up as ‘high expectations, broken promises,'” Borrell said in a blog post.

The high community representative recalled that both Russia and China had carried out active “vaccine diplomacy” to “expand their global influence by promising to provide vaccines to the world.”

He recalled that, in contrast, the EU has exported “almost twice as many vaccines as China, three times more than the United States and 20 times more than Russia”, with 2.2 billion doses supplied to 167 countries.

Of these 2,200 million doses exported, he specified that 475 million were donated to 104 countries, of which 405 million were through COVAX – the UN vaccination platform – and 70 million bilaterally, especially in the Balkans. Western and the former Soviet republics of the Eastern Association.

“In terms of donations, the United States did slightly more than us, with 542 million doses donated to 117 countries. But in reality we have donated many more vaccines than China -with only 130 million to 95 countries- and Russia -with only 1.5 million doses to 19 countries-“Borrell stressed.

The Spanish politician insisted that China has been the second largest commercial supplier of vaccines against COVID-19 worldwide, “but has donated three times less vaccine than the EU and the United States, respectively.” He also said that China participates in COVAX and has sold 226 million doses to that multilateral facility, although it has not donated “any” vaccine to it.

“More importantly, China also did not deliver any mRNA vaccine, which has proven to be the most effective tool against coronavirus, including new variants,” he added.

Borrell also referred to the fact that “Russian diplomacy on vaccines has been a total failure, and this was already the case before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.”

Regarding the Russian vaccine “Sputnik V”, he pointed out that it was approved “before going to phase III of mandatory clinical trials”, for which it “failed to comply with the relevant international protocols and ruined its reputation from the beginning, even in Russia, as evidenced by the high degree of indecision about the vaccine”.

In addition, he recalled that Sputnik V was never approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), “mainly due to the lack of transparency of Russian laboratories.”

Borrell also noted that Russia has only delivered less than 15% of the 800 million Sputnik V doses committed.

Finally, Borrell mentioned India as “a major player in vaccines”, which in the first phase of vaccine deployment “lived up to its reputation as the ‘world’s pharmacy’ by mass-producing the AstraZeneca vaccine”.

Instead, he stressed that, given the increase in the pandemic in the country, India stopped all vaccine exports in April 2021, a decision that constituted “a big problem” for COVAX, which at that time depended almost exclusively on the vaccine. AstraZeneca.

The Indian ban on exporting vaccines was not lifted until October 2021, he said, and since then India’s vaccine exports have not really recovered, with only 230 million doses exported to 100 countries, of which 15 million have been donated. , he concluded. EFE

rja / cd

(More information on the European Union at euroefe.euractiv.es)

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