Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen has made five-point recommendations, including the necessity to undertake a time-bound action plan, supported by financing and capacity building, for addressing the unwarranted vaccine gap for many low- and middle-income countries.
He made the recommendations during a virtual Covid-19 Ministerial Meeting held on Wednesday.
The minister attended the meeting at the invitation of US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday.
In his second recommendation, Momen suggested convening a high-level panel by the WHO featuring select global leaders to devise a blueprint for preventing and managing future pandemic, ideally with gender and geographic balance.
The minister called for the US and the WHO to take the lead in convening an expert working group on the question of strengthening national level disease control agencies.
In his fourth recommendation, he mentioned supporting the vaccine manufacturing capabilities in certain countries like Bangladesh in the Global South, in a meaningful manner through appropriate interventions concerning intellectual property rights and technology transfer.
In the fifth recommendation, Momen called for factoring the linkage between climate change and biodiversity loss with pandemic outbreaks in the collective efforts to build back better, greener and stronger from the pandemic.
In his statement during the meeting, the foreign minister highlighted the fact that Bangladesh has managed to keep the fatality rate lower than the global average, and also informed that the infection rate remains under 1 per cent in the country at present.
Contrary to some dire projections, the country managed to keep the infection and death rates absolutely minimal in the congested Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar, Momen added.
He reiterated Bangladesh’s demand that the Covid vaccines should be declared as “global public goods” to make affordable to all countries.
He also urged that pharmaceutical companies, including those in Bangladesh, should be encouraged and assisted to produce Covid vaccines.
Bangladesh stands ready to contribute to global vaccines production for sharing with others, he said.
Recalling that Bangladesh has so far administered 78 million vaccine doses, with 46 million single doses and 32 million double doses, Foreign Minister Momen said, “the target is to vaccinate 80 per cent of our target population group by March 2022, and for that continued supply of vaccines is required.”
He underscored the fact that no country would remain completely safe until the mutating coronavirus is brought under control in all corners of the globe, and for this there is no other option but to ensure inclusive international cooperation, leaving no one behind.
Momen stressed upon the necessity to have strong partnership and collaboration amongst the foreign ministers to step up political support in such critical situations at present and also in the future.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Blinken urged the foreign ministers to work together for addressing the challenges posed by the pandemic, and announced the launch of a Covid Data Tracker.
Stating that vaccines will be made available in conflict affected areas, he said that concerted work would be undertaken to meet the estimated shortfall of 550 million doses of vaccines required to bring the entire target population group under vaccination coverage.
Secretary Blinken presided over the sessions, with IMF managing director, US NIH director, and WHO director general setting the scene.
The meeting was attended by foreign ministers of around 25 countries.
In addition to Bangladesh foreign minister, the foreign ministers of the EU, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway, Romania, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, India, Indonesia, Maldives, ROK, South Africa, Senegal, and Kenya were invited to speak.
The senior representatives of the African Union, Pacific Island Forum and League of Arab States, Organisation of American States also spoke.
