PM asks international community to ensure availability of vaccine for everyone 

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Monday urged the international community to ensure that the coronavirus vaccine was available to everyone, everywhere and as soon as possible, and if it were not done, the virus would roam around and come back.

While making an opening statement at the special virtual segment of the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council on Financing for Development, he said the forum’s deliberations this year were critical as the world battled the coronavirus and its massive socio-economic fallout.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said Pakistan contained the first two waves of the virus through “a policy of smart lockdowns“. We implemented an eight billion dollar relief package to support the poor and vulnerable, and to keep our economy afloat at the same time.

The prime minister stressed that the production of the vaccine must be ramped up, the patent and technology-transfer restrictions should be waived to enable it.

“Vaccine nationalism and export restrictions are deplorable; as is the use of the vaccine to advance national foreign policy objectives, he emphasized.”