PM seeks equitable access to vaccines

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Saturday stressed timely and equitable access to prospective COVID-19 vaccines while addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) amid a visible trend of "vaccine nationalism" when developed countries are prioritizing their access to prospective inoculates ahead of others, reports BSS.

"We hope that the COVID-19 vaccine will soon be available in the world. It is imperative to treat the vaccine as a 'global public good'," she said in her UNGA statement this year through virtual media.

Sheikh Hasina said "the pandemic is a stark reminder that our fates are interconnected and that no one is secured until everyone is secured" and therefore "we need to ensure the timely availability of this vaccine to all countries at the same time".

The Bangladesh premier's pre-recorded speech came as United Nations stages its 75th UNGA session while the global COVID -19 pandemic forces the global forum to hold the annual assembly of world leaders through the virtual media in New York this year.

She delivered the speech in Bangla as she did in previous UNGA sessions as the premier, following Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's footprint,

Sheikh Hasina informed the UNGA about of higher infrastructural capacity of Bangladesh pharmaceutical industry and said if Bangladesh was provided with the technical know-how and patents, it could launch mass-scale productions of inoculates.

The Bangladesh premier's 17- minute speech simultaneously featured largely the Rohingya crisis while she also highlighted issues of climate change and migrant workers' plight due to COVID-19 pandemic.

She informed the UNGA of Bangladesh's ongoing development campaign and efforts to attain the SDG goals and replicable success stories, her government's zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism and violent extremism and commitment to multilateralism and world peace.

Sheikh Hasina reiterated her call to the world community to play a more effective role in solving the protracted Rohingya crisis saying "more than three years have elapsed (but) regrettably, not a single Rohingya could be repatriated" as Bangladesh provided makeshift shelter to over 1.1 million forcibly displaced Myanmar people .

"I request the international community to play a more effective role for a solution to the crisis," she said.