Humanitarian cooperation

Ceremony to hand over 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine to Belarus held in Minsk

MINSK, 6 September (BelTA) – An official ceremony to sign the documents to donate 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine was held at the Healthcare Ministry of Belarus in Minsk  on 6 September, BelTA learned from the press service of the Healthcare Ministry.

The documents were signed by Belarusian Healthcare Minister Dmitry Pinevich and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to Belarus  Xie Xiaoyong . The airlift from Beijing with 1.5 million doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Belarus in the morning of 5 September. Belarus received 500,000 doses of vaccine as gratuitous aid, and another 1 million doses under the purchase contract. According to the minister, the Chinese vaccine will be distributed among the regions in the next two to three days.

Dmitry Pinevich hailed the cooperation between the two countries and recalled that since the beginning of the pandemic, Belarus has become the first country to send humanitarian cargo to China to help the country fight the pandemic. "The first cargo was sent on 30 January, and the second - on 6 February. The time we faced with pandemics, China provided large-scale assistance to us," he said. “We cooperate with 20 provinces of China, the experience of this country is widely used in the domestic practice. Our country has already received two batches of 400,000 doses of vaccine as gratuitous aid."

According to the Chinese ambassador to Belarus, “the third batch of vaccines is another step to implement the agreements between the two heads of state”. In his words, it demonstrates the high level of relations between the states and the deep friendship between the peoples. “Since the COVID-19 outbreak, our cooperation has been meaningful, fruitful and close-knit. China will continue to develop fruitful cooperation with Belarus to combat the coronavirus,” he said.

According to Ambassador Xie Xiaoyong, an enterprise in the China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone plans to produce effective preparations of Chinese traditional medicine. The enterprise is implementing a project to develop a remedy for effective treatment of the coronavirus, and will begin clinical trials soon.

According to chief doctor of the National Medical Response Center of the Healthcare Ministry Dmitry Alkhovik, the airlift with the Chinese vaccine landed in Belarus 12 hours later than planned. “The main thing is that the supply chain has not been broken, because the vaccine is stored in special packaging. The boxes have a special coating and temperature sensors. The vaccine is currently undergoing quality control,” he said.

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