DUBAI'S ALLIANCE SHINES : SPEEDING VACCINE

Dubai announces alliance to speed Covid vaccine delivery :

DUBAI : Key transport hub Dubai on Sunday announced an initiative to accelerate the delivery of coronavirus vaccine, particularly to developing nations, after the WHO warned against abandoning the world's poor.

The Vaccine Logistics Alliance, which includes Dubai-based Emirates airline and global logistics giant  DP World, is designed to ''speed up distribution of Covid-18 vaccines, around the world through the emirate''.

The alliance will ''support the World Health Organization's Covax initiative to distribute two billion vaccine doses, the Dubai Media Office said in a statement, without specifying how many doses it would deliver.

''The distribution will particularly focus on emerging markets, where populations have been hard-hit by the pandemic , and pharmaceutical transport and logistics are challenging,'' it said.

The WHO has urged wealthy countries to avoid repeating past mistakes of hoarding medicine and vaccines, saying such behavior would only drag out the pandemic.

''We are all too aware of the challenges facing us globally in this pandemic and necessity to work together,'' the UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs , Anwar Gargash, said in a tweet.

Covax, the globally pooled vaccine procurement and distribution effort , has struck agreements with manufacturers for two billion vaccine doses, and secured options on a billion more.

Dubai said the alliance will work with pharmaceutical manufacturers, forwarders, and government agencies to transport vaccines, some of which have to be kept at very cold temperatures,

The World Students Society thanks Business Recorder for the News.