30 March 2021 19:01

A meeting was held on the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Azerbaijan

On March 30, 2021, Zaur Aliyev, Chairman of the Executive Board of the State Agency on Mandatory Health Insurance held an online meeting with Rosie Grieves, Senior Manager Country Communications of GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) and Edward Carward, Head of the Representative Office of UNICEF (UN Children's Fund) in Azerbaijan.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss questions related to the import of the COVID-19 vaccine from the AstraZeneca company into the country.

Rosie Grieves said that taking into consideration the epidemiological situation in Azerbaijan, the fact that Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to start vaccination against coronavirus infection, and the shortage of vaccines at the initial stage, the supply of vaccines for Azerbaijan was planned for April.

Mr. Aliyev, Chairman of the Board of the Agency said this argument was unsubstantiated and these points had not been included in the agreements with COVAX. He added that, the Republic of Azerbaijan was one of the first 50 countries to appreciate the initiative of the COVAX platform for the development of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and join this cooperation. The fair distribution of vaccines among world countries was an important component for effective cooperation in the fight against pandemics: “From the first days, the activities of Azerbaijan were in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization, the country has contributed to the cooperation in the fight against COVID-19 and fulfilled all obligations set by the COVAX platform. Also, all the necessary infrastructure for vaccination process has been created in Azerbaijan. However, there are delays in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to our country through the COVAX platform.”

Rosie Grieves stated that initially 84,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from the AstraZeneca company would be sent to Azerbaijan from Korea on April 5. “The vaccine will be delivered to the country within 5 or 6 days. In addition, 218,790 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines will be allocated for Azerbaijan within 8 weeks.

It should be stated that a total of 432,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca are expected to be imported to the Republic of Azerbaijan by the end of May.

At the end of the meeting, Aliyev, the chairman of the Agency expressed his hope that the COVAX platform would remain committed to its obligations towards Azerbaijan and ensure the delivery of the promised vaccine to our country on the agreed dates.