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Communist Party of China praises AL for contributions to Bangladesh's progress
Appreciating the outstanding achievements Bangladesh made over the past five decades, Communist Party of China (CPC) has said they “salute” the Awami League for its important contributions to the independence, development and progress of Bangladesh.
"Both the CPC and the Awami League shoulder the lofty responsibility of realising the dream of national development and creating a better life for all," the CPC said in a congratulatory message to AL.
Under the leadership of the Awami League, Bangladesh now reaches a crucial stage of national development and is marching toward the realisation of the "Sonar Bangla" dream, the message reads.
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The CPC said it stands ready to work with the Awami League to implement the important consensus reached between leaders of two parties and two countries as they make concerted efforts to build a new type of party-to-party relations that seeks to expand a common ground while reserving differences and enhances mutual respect and mutual learning.
"What we do together will go a long way towards providing political guidance for the alignment of our development strategies, the promotion of our Belt and Road cooperation and the deepening of China-Bangladesh strategic cooperative partnership.
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We wish Bangladesh success and prosperity and its people happiness," the message reads.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Bangladesh, the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) extended their heartfelt congratulations to the Awami League and the people of Bangladesh.
"It was 50 years ago that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman founded the People's Republic of Bangladesh," the message reads.
Over the past five decades, the CPC said, Bangladesh has made remarkable achievements in national development.
Bangladesh is hosting a 10-day special programme marking the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 50 years of Bangladesh's Independence.
Share Covid jabs out of self-interest: WHO
The growing gap between the number of vaccines being given in rich countries and those administered through COVAX is becoming “more grotesque every day”, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
“In January, I said that the world was on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure unless urgent steps were taken to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines," the UN News quoted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, as telling journalists at a regular news briefing on Monday.
“We have the means to avert this failure, but it’s shocking how little has been done to avert it," he added, noting that WHO has been working “day and night to find solutions to increase the production and equitable distribution of vaccines”.
Also read: Virus variants, vaccine inequity responsible for rising Covid caseload: WHO
‘False sense of security’
The WHO chief pointed out that while some countries are vaccinating their entire populations, others have no shots.
“The inequitable distribution of vaccines is not just a moral outrage, it’s also economically and epidemiologically self-defeating," he said, pointing out that some nations are vaccinating low risk, younger people at the cost of “health workers, older people and other at-risk groups in other countries”.
And because more transmissions mean more variants, Tedros upheld that the imbalance in jabs only provides “a false sense of security” as “the more variants that emerge, the more likely it is that they will evade vaccines”.
Also read: COVID infections drop 16% worldwide in one week: WHO
“As long as the virus continues to circulate anywhere, people will continue to die, trade and travel will continue to be disrupted, and the economic recovery will be further delayed," he spelled out.
Last Friday, WHO hosted a meeting on enhancing genomic sequencing of the coronavirus, to better monitor its evolution in the face of the many mutations that are raising international concern.
Tedros said that while knowing when, how and where the virus is evolving, is vital information, it is of limited use if countries do not work together to suppress transmission “everywhere at the same time”.
“If countries won’t share vaccines for the right reasons, we appeal to them to do it out of self-interest," he said.
AstraZeneca equity commitment
Tedros also told journalists that he had spoken to vaccine manufacturers on how to ramp up production, including the CEO of AstraZeneca, manufacturer of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca shots, which were temporarily suspended by a group of countries, mainly in Europe, amid concerns over blood-clotting statistics.
Germany, France, Italy and Spain, are among those who have begun using the vaccine again following reassurances from top regulators. On Monday, a large study in the United States, Chile and Peru, reportedly showed that the vaccine was 79% effective in preventing the illness and 100% effective against severe symptoms and hospitalisation.
“These data are further evidence that the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is safe and effective," Tedros said.
He flagged that AstraZeneca is “the only company that has committed to not profiting from its Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic” and the only vaccine developer that has made a significant contribution to vaccine equity, “by licensing its technology to several other companies”. This includes in Korea and India, where manufacturers are producing more than 90 percent of COVAX-distributed vaccines.
Sharing vaccine technology
“We need more vaccine producers to follow this example and licence their technology to other companies," underscored the WHO chief.
He noted that a year ago, Costa Rica and WHO had launched a mechanism called the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool or C-TAP, designed precisely to promote an “open-science model”, where licensing would occur “in a non-exclusive, transparent manner, to leverage as much manufacturing capacity as possible. So far, C-TAP remains a highly promising, but under-utilized tool".
Again, he argued that while WHO and partners can design and advocate for solutions to save lives, “we need all countries and all manufacturers to work with us to make them happen".
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