Uzbekistan on January 17 received another batch of COVID-19 vaccine. The Pfizer shipment totaling 310,050 doses was donated by the US government through the COVAX facility, building on over 5.6 million doses of the U.S.-manufactured vaccines the US had delivered to Uzbekistan since July 2021. COVAX has also provided about 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Uzbekistan in multiple deliveries, partially funded by the U.S. Government.
Botir Kurbanov, Anti-coronavirus staff member, said: “Another batch of Pfizer/Biontech vaccines has arrived in Uzbekistan. In total, more than 49.8 million vaccine doses have been imported into our country. More than 40 million of vaccine jabs have been used throughout the vaccination campaign. To date, more than 687 thousand adolescents in Uzbekistan have been vaccinated with Pfizer”.
Daniel Rosenblum, US Ambassador to Uzbekistan, noted: “We have been working together in partnership with the government of Uzbekistan for the past two years now fighting this pandemic. The reason we are doing that is that we can’t defeat the pandemic and we can’t overcome it unless we work together with partners all over the world. Our partners in Uzbekistan have been great partners. We worked very effectively together with a lot of help from other international organizations especially UNICEF responsible for these shipments that were coming in through the COVAX mechanism. So we thank our partners for this. But more importantly, I want to reemphasize that we only eventually defeat COVID-19 in partnership with all these international organizations and the governments including the government of Uzbekistan. So today we recommit ourselves to that struggle and there will be more donations coming in the future. We will continue to work here in the country to make sure they are distributed properly to support that distribution and we hope very much we all hope we won’t have to do that for too much longer that we will overcome this pandemic and that we will all be able to return to something more than a normal life. But for now, we are going to continue the struggle we are going to continue this effort very much together with our partners here in Uzbekistan”.
Munir Mammadzade, Representative of UNICEF Country Office in Uzbekistan, added: “As you know, UNICEF is on the front lines leading the largest and most complex vaccine supply within the COVAX facility. So far, since the advent of the pandemic, nearly 10 million doses have been delivered to Uzbekistan from our side. Just yesterday UNICEF COVID-19 vaccine deliveries worldwide hit 1 billion doses. We do this in 144 countries and provide donations of vaccines. This work is ongoing. I am pleased to announce that during the first quarter of this year, other 11 million doses will be delivered to Uzbekistan. That’s about 4 million doses of Pfizer donated by the US. And more than 7 million doses of the Moderna vaccine will be delivered under the COVAX mechanism, which is funded by various donors”.
Besides, through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the United States Agency for International Development has recently allocated $2.5 million in urgent COVID-19 assistance for Uzbekistan. With this assistance, the United States Government has provided more than $17 million to address COVID-19 in Uzbekistan. (Uzreport/Business World Magazine)
