Muscat: Delegated by His Majesty Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik, Dr Ahmed Mohammed al Saeedi, Minister of Health took part in the Gavi-COVAX conference, a virtual international meeting organized by Gavi COVAX under the theme “One Protected World”.
Dr Ahmed commended the efforts being undertaken by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) with the purpose of making the world more suitable for the billions living in it, despite the challenges that the alliance is facing. He pointed out that the GAVI proved its ability to rally solidarity and fair global distribution of vaccines.
The minister called for supporting the Covax to help fill the gap of insufficient resources. In particular, he urged donating parties to take initiatives to save lives and ensure that the vaccines reach poor countries. The Sultanate has been chosen to participate in the conference due to its good international reputation in the field of health and due to its position as linking point among countries of the region.
The Gavi, acting under the leadership of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and partners, seeks to accelerate the distribution of the vaccines, including polio vaccine, and this initiative plays a major role against the spread of contagious diseases in the world.
The conference, hosted by Japan, worked towards the arrival of 1.8 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to low income countries through advance commitments of COVAX, which eyes an additional $2 billion-worth of grants from donating countries and private entities, to be added to the existing $6.3 billion collected prior to launching the conference.
The conference brought together government, private sector organizations, civil society institutions, technical and executive parties. The lessons learned will help address the challenges of the pandemic.
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