China creates green corridor for timely delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to Azerbaijan
By Ayya Lmahamad
China has created a “green corridor” for the timely delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to Azerbaijan, Chinese Ambassador Guo Min has said.
It should be noted that the "green corridor" implies customs control in an accelerated mode.
On April 1, Azerbaijan received another batch of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine consisting of 500,000 doses. The use of these COVID-19 vaccines will begin in the coming days.
The delivery of the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines to Azerbaijan is underway on the basis of a contract signed recently with the government of China for the supply of 5 million doses of those vaccines to Azerbaijan.
Guo Min stated that the delivery of another batch of coronavirus vaccine from China to Azerbaijan demonstrated the deep traditional friendship between the countries and the great sympathy of the Chinese people for Azerbaijan.
Moreover, she noted that the next batch of coronavirus vaccines is planned to be delivered to Azerbaijan at the end of April.
She underlined that China is ready to fully support Azerbaijan in the fight against the coronavirus.
The ambassador emphasized that after the pandemic spread in the world China and Azerbaijan rendered great moral and material support to each other to overcome this difficulty, and shared necessary experience.
“Now the pandemic is spread in the world again. For the Azerbaijani government to overcome the emerging difficulties and achieve final victory over the pandemic, the Chinese government decided to send 150,000 doses of vaccine free of charge in the near future,” she said.
Likewise, Azerbaijan's Deputy Health Minister Victor Gasimov stated that the most effective method of fighting coronavirus is vaccination.
"Azerbaijan is one of the first countries that started vaccination. In Azerbaijan, more than 550,000 people received the vaccine. The higher the rate of vaccination, the faster the epidemiological situation in Azerbaijan will stabilize," Gasimov said.
Azerbaijan started vaccinating citizens using China’s Sinovac vaccines on January 18. Initially, the country ordered 4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The nationwide vaccination is free and on a voluntary basis and is in line with the “Strategy of vaccination against COVID-19 in Azerbaijan for 2021-2022”.
Azerbaijan confirmed its first COVID-19 case on February 28, 2020. The country introduced a special quarantine regime on March 25 and took a number of measures to fight COVID-19 in the country. Moreover, the government allocated $1.1bn from the 2020 budget to fight the coronavirus infection.
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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad
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