Fighting the spread of the coronavirus requires international cooperation, and countries need to refrain from ‘vaccine nationalism’ - the desire to keep vaccines for themselves, Head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell stated, reports TASS.
“EU welcomes the $50 billion plan proposed by the IMF to be able to vaccinate 40 per cent of the world population in 2021 and 60 per cent by mid-2022. To achieve this goal, we need closely coordinated multilateral action. We must resist the threats posed by "vaccine diplomacy", linking the provision of vaccines to political goals, and "vaccine nationalism", reserving vaccines for oneself. In contrast to others, the EU has rejected both since the beginning of the pandemic,” Borrell said, adding that the EU rejected both of these paths from the very beginning of the pandemic.
According to him, we need to close the vaccination gap between advanced economies and developing countries to avoid what Tedros Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, has called ‘vaccination apartheid’.
