Sisi: Africa Should Get Fair Coronavirus Vaccines

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi took part, on Wednesday, via video conference, in the meeting of the Bureau of the Assembly of the African Union (AU).

The meeting was attended also by French President Emmanuel Macron, African leaders, President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Félix Tshisekedi and Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki.

“The meeting discussed ways to provide vaccines for the novel coronavirus, and how to support African health care systems,” said Presidency Spokesperson Bassam Rady.

Rady added that Sisi pointed out that the holding of this meeting confirms the availability of political will to enhance joint African efforts to deal with the effects and consequences of the pandemic, with the huge challenge and unprecedented threat it poses to health systems and development at the regional and international levels. 

“The president stressed the importance of continuing coordination with the international community so that the African countries will get fair and just opportunity to obtain coronavirus vaccines,” the spokesman noted.

In this regard, Sisi called for mobilizing the necessary funding and logistical support to face the economic, social and health repercussions of the pandemic, within a comprehensive institutional framework.

Sisi also affirmed that Egypt will spare no effort to harness all its capabilities to support its African brothers in order to obtain coronavirus vaccines, taking into account the Egyptian experiences in this regard, which would enhance the strategy of the African Union to obtain the vaccine, in pursuit of the aspirations of the African people to eradicate this pandemic and its negative repercussions.

The President also pointed out that the coronavirus pandemic has revealed the need to achieve a fair distribution of vaccines in parallel with strengthening health systems, in order to enable them to play their role in health care, and then contribute to achieving economic recovery, stressing in this regard the importance of giving priority to ensuring that the African countries have received a sufficient share of vaccines at preferential prices that meet the needs of their people. 

Rady manifested that the meeting witnessed consensus on the need to strengthen solidarity between African peoples and governments in order to control the spread of the pandemic and limit its negative repercussions, through mutual coordination to find innovative and effective solutions and arrangements to provide vaccines to all African countries. 

“Sisi praised all initiatives aimed at securing a fair distribution of vaccines at the international level,” he affirmed. 

The Egyptian president asserted the importance of working to bridge the financing gap to avoid further delays in the availability of vaccines and fair distribution of vaccines in the appropriate size and timing, in order to accelerate the global recovery process.