WASHINGTON: Foreign Min­­­­ister Bilawal Bhutto-Zar­da­ri said on Thursday that Pakistan’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was firmly grounded in scientific evidence and logic.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari voiced this praise at a global summit on the pandemic, co-hosted by the White House.

“Health security, especially in times of pandemic, is indivisible. Microorganisms do not reco­gnize nation-states. For them, we are all the same. To counter them, we must act as one.”

“Any approach to deal with a health crisis must be grounded firmly in scientific evidence and logic,” he said, adding “responses, monitoring and evaluation should be guided by established methods of epidemiology and community medicine.” Pakistan’s response to the pandemic was “firmly embedded in these principles. We prioritised vaccinations, boosters, and adequate infection prevention measures,” he added.

Acknowledging the support Pakistan received from a number of countries and international organizations, the foreign minister noted that “the US was immensely generous in providing 62 million vaccines to Pakistan.” And, of course, “China, from the outset, supported us tremendously,” he added while underlining Islamabad’s need to maintain a balanced relationship with the two major world powers.

Pakistan, too, provided Covid-related assistance to countries that needed it, he said,

Mr. Bhutto-Zardari pointed out that the pandemic was a sombre time for human civilisation — “a period to reflect what truly mattered for homo sapiens.”

He urged the international community to discuss and dev­elop short and long-term solutions to this, as well as future health crises.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2022