On January 24, Egypt began to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus of China National Pharmaceutical Group on a large scale, thus becoming one of the first countries in Africa to vaccinate citizens against the novel coronavirus. Some media mentioned that Egypt received the first batch of Chinese vaccines last December, and that batch of vaccines were given by the United Arab Emirates. Coincidentally, Seychelles, an African island country with a population of less than 100,000, took the lead in vaccination on the 10th of this month, and it was also given 50,000 doses of Chinese vaccine from the United Arab Emirates at the end of last year.
Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 epidemic, the supply of vaccines exceeds the demand, and the United Arab Emirates has cooperated with China very early. Now not only does its own vaccination progress rank among the top three in the world, but many analysts believe that this year it will become the “Middle East vaccine center”. Small country ambition? It is true. According to many analyses, this is closely related to the development thinking of the United Arab Emirates and the strategy of actively “looking east”.
How can the emirate in this desert be “vaccinated for all”?
According to a recent briefing from a spokesman for the UAE Foreign Ministry, the country currently has the second highest rate of coronavirus vaccinations in the world (26%) (after Israel), and the fifth most universal vaccination rate in the world, with more than 2.56 million people (mostly Chinese vaccines).” The United Arab Emirates is on the track of vaccinating half of its population by the end of March,” CNBC said that in September last year, the desert-based small emirate first vaccincinated front-line medical workers and government officials against the Chinese National Pharmaceutical Group, and began to vaccinate the whole population at the end of last year.
With a population of less than 10 million, the UAE can make appointments or on-site vaccination at large vaccination centers all over the country, whether citizens, residents or tourist visa holders are now. It is really “vaccinated for all”. According to the latest regulations, government workers and state-owned enterprises in the United Arab Emirates must be vaccinated, and the cost of regular testing is borne by individuals.
On January 12, the leaders of the United Arab Emirates issued an appeal to the whole population through social media, urging everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible in order to be responsible for individuals, families and society, and promised that the government would continue to supply vaccines to the public free of charge.
The UAE’s leading regulatory agency and enforcement agency on COVID-19 and vaccine matters have made huge and arduous efforts at home and abroad. However, the United Arab Emirates has been able to promote vaccination on a large scale in China. Important support comes from China’s commitment to providing public goods such as vaccines for the global fight against the epidemic, political mutual trust between China and Afghanistan, and the strong scientific research and production capacity of Chinese pharmaceutical companies.
Afghan leaders, government departments and health strategic enterprises have maintained close communication and cooperation with relevant Chinese institutions during the COVID-19 epidemic. Under the circumstances that the West continues to question China about the origin of the epidemic and the safety of the vaccine, the International Clinical Trial (Phase III) of the Chinese Bio-CoV Inactivated Vaccine of the State Pharmaceutical Group was in Abuja last June.
Compared with holding the launch ceremony. In September, the Afghan government approved the emergency use of the Chinese vaccine, and in December, the vaccine was approved for market in Afghanistan. Although some foreign media questioned the relevant test data, the United Arab Emirates still carried out large-scale vaccination as planned.
As an economic star and logistics center in the Middle East and the Gulf region, the United Arab Emirates is facing serious challenges in responding to the global COVID-19 epidemic, but also playing its unique location and political and economic advantages. The UAE is rich in medical resources and effectively managed by the government, so there will be no large-scale public health crisis.
However, the high infectivity, globality and repetitiveness of COVID-19 poses great challenges to transportation, trade and people-to-people hubs such as the United Arab Emirates. However, with the efforts of the Afghan government, the country became the first country in the world to carry out a three-phase trial of inactivated vaccine. Because of the early trials, the emergency use of vaccines from China has effectively curbed the spread of the epidemic.
At the end of 2020, due to the influx of tourists in the winter New Year and the emergence of mutant strains, the number of confirmed cases in the United Arab Emirates has repeatedly reached new highs, but the severe patients and mortality rates are very low. Because of the adequacy of medical resources and the role of vaccines, the number of people recovering in the United Arab Emirates tends to be more than the number of infected people every day.
The expert team of China National Pharmaceutical Group and the health experts of the United Arab Emirates regularly communicate and share information, and regularly include and analyze the problems and feedback generated during the experiment and vaccination process, so that the national drug vaccine is further compliant, improved and recognized by more and more countries.
According to insiders, the number of buyers from countries in the Middle East and Africa who have recently purchased national medicine vaccines through consultation and docking with the United Arab Emirates has been on the rise, which once slowed down the pace of vaccination in the United Arab Emirates itself to avoid poor supply. Recently, the United Arab Emirates also decided to cooperate with the National Pharmaceutical Group to establish a vaccine production plant in the port of Khalifa, Abu Dhabi, to meet the growing global demand for vaccines.
“The first country in the Middle East to produce vaccines”
“We are at the lead stage in discussions with key strategic partners and are pleased to announce that localized vaccine production will be completed in the UAE.” “We intend to start production (vaccines) this year,” Ashesh Kosi, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based G42 Healthcare, told the UAE National newspaper not long ago.
The newspaper said that the United Arab Emirates has obtained a vaccine production license from Chinese pharmaceutical companies, and the vaccine produced not only meets local demand, but is expected to be supplied to the world.
The global coronavirus epidemic has worsened again since the beginning of winter, and then the United Arab Emirates launched a global logistics center on November 26 last year, with Abu Dhabi as the hub, planning to transport and deliver billions of doses of coronavirus vaccine worldwide by the end of this year.
According to UAE media reports, the Health Bureau of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi took the lead in launching a mechanism called the Alliance of Hope to coordinate the storage and distribution of vaccines. The first phase of the members include the Etihad Freight Company and the Abu Dhabi Port Company.
The alliance is a broad organization based on the public-private partnership of the United Arab Emirates. It was established to meet the logistical challenges of distributing the coronavirus vaccine worldwide.
So far, many global logistics and warehousing giants have joined the alliance one after another. The vaccine center in Abu Dhabi will ensure that vaccines from various countries are stored at the required temperature, purchased and distributed according to demand, and accurately tracked.
The Coalition of Hope plans to move and store more than 6 billion vaccine bottles (both single and multi-dose) in cold and ultra-cold conditions by mid-next year, and will more than triple by the end of next year. This represents the largest storage capacity in the region and one of the largest storage capacity in the world.
At present, vaccines from national pharmaceutical group, Pfizer, Modna, Russian “Satellite-V” and other manufacturers are stored in the facilities of Abu Dhabi Port Company and transported by Etihad Cargo Company (Etihad Cargo Company is the first Middle Eastern carrier certified by the relevant agencies of the International Air Transport Association) to The whole world, especially the surrounding Asian and African developing countries.
With the current international political ecology full of the legacy of unilateralism, the approval and selection of vaccines by various countries is not only a public health issue, but also has political implications. The United Arab Emirates will make beneficial exploration and contribution to the control of the COVID-19 epidemic and economic recovery by borrowing China to build a “Middle East Vaccine Center” and work together to fight the epidemic.
This is obviously different from the “vaccine nationalism” pursued by some big countries, regardless of the availability of vaccine distribution and the reasonable distribution as a global public good.
As for the significance of the United Arab Emirates becoming a vaccine production base in the Middle East, Germany’s Economic Weekly said: The United Arab Emirates will start producing Chinese vaccines later this year under the permission of Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturers, which means that the United Arab Emirates will become the first country to produce vaccines in the Middle East. Local production plans will not only meet the United Arab Emirates’ goal of achieving herd immunity.
Because all this is related to China, German News TV commented on the 25th that the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries are now using China’s vaccine, highlighting the new type of cooperation between Asia’s most powerful countries and the rich countries in the Arabian Peninsula.
The review said that vaccine cooperation shows that the Middle East has become a strategic node of China’s “Healthy Silk Road” and a symbol of cooperation between the two sides in the scientific field. Many countries may choose to follow the footsteps of Middle Eastern countries such as the United Arab Emirates and strengthen vaccine and scientific cooperation with China.
China, “trustworthy actor”
As a young country less than 50 years old, the United Arab Emirates does not have much historical burdens and is very open to cooperation and exchanges with other countries, including in-depth cooperation with China in vaccine testing and distribution and transportation. The clinical trial of Chinese vaccine in the United Arab Emirates last June was highly expected and supported by the country’s official and private people. Hamad, director of the Health Bureau of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, became the first UAE to be vaccinated against a trial, and Abdulrahman Orvis, the elderly UAE Minister of Health and Prevention, was soon vaccinated.
In September, the UAE government approved the emergency use of the inactivated vaccine of the national medicine among front-line personnel. Soon after, the Federal Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, the Prime Minister, the chief of Dubai, and government ministers were vaccinated against China, which temporarily became the headlines of the United Arab Emirates and a hot topic on social media. Some media and government documents simply call this vaccine “China vaccine” or “Beijing vaccine”, which is praised.
The international exchanges of the United Arab Emirates focus on practical interests and are weak ideological.
Although there are huge differences with China in terms of religious, cultural and political systems, they do not affect the strategic mutual trust and in-depth cooperation between the two sides. The United Arab Emirates actively “looks east”, making China’s great success in fighting the epidemic and the achievements of developing a coronavirus vaccine also become one of its major strategic supports for meeting the challenges of the global epidemic.
However, due to its geographically complex Middle East environment, the United Arab Emirates cooperates with the United States in military security, and the two sides are quasi-ally to a certain extent. On the issue of vaccines, it opens up with the Pfizer vaccine network in the United States and approves emergency use without clinical trials in the country.
In late December last year, in addition to the Chinese vaccine, Dubai residents added another vaccination option – Pfizer vaccine. Despite the limited quantity and current shortage, and the long waiting time, some people from Europe and the United States prefer to be vaccinated against Pfizer.
On January 21 this year, the UAE government approved the emergency use of Russia’s “satellite-V” coronavirus vaccine, which has been clinical trials in the United Arab Emirates for about four months.
However, China’s vaccine is actively used by the United Arab Emirates and other countries, which has aroused dissatisfaction among some European and American countries. Some Western media said that the effect of Chinese vaccine is obviously not as good as that of Pfizer vaccine, but it is puzzling that these countries choose China.
The UAE (and Bahrain) trusts Chinese vaccines and they want both political and public health benefits, according to a report by The Economist on January 16. The article said that reliable data on Chinese vaccines were not submitted, and some developing countries questioned Chinese vaccines like Europe and the United States.
