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Dubai’s leading companies have formed an alliance to move 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines worldwide this year.
Emirates, port operator DP World and Dubai Airports have teamed up Until accelerate the distribution of inoculations through Dubai, the Gulf’s commercial and tourist hub that now wants to become a vaccine center as well.
The measure “will focus particularly on emerging markets, where populations have been hard hit by the pandemic and pharmaceutical and logistics transportation are difficult,” according to the government media office’s announcement.
International Humanitarian City, an emergency response center based in Dubai, has also joined the alliance.
Abu Dhabi made a similar connection in November, when it formed a consortium combining its air cargo factory, port and health procurement group with the Swiss container designer SkyCell AG will facilitate the worldwide distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, plans to start manufacturing the vaccine developed by China’s Sinopharm this year. The oil-rich country has approved Pfizer Inc. i The shooting of BioNTech SE, and the Russian Sputnik V, and since then has deployed an ambitious vaccination campaign. So far it has inoculated a quarter of its 10 million population, the third after Israel and the Seychelles.
Supply scarcity and logistical problems are holding back vaccines around the world. Dubai postponed its first dose of Pfizer vaccine and the European Union unveiled a plan to restrict exports.
(Updates to the Abu Dhabi program in the fifth paragraph, global scarcity in the seventh)