Thank you, Chair.
Many thanks to all the witnesses.
We know that since the beginning of the crisis and the minute the vaccines were developed, the pharmaceutical companies' interest was truly a financial one. There was a pharmaceutical lobby. There was a financial interest in distributing the vaccines to countries paying the most, something the COVAX initiative was supposed to temper, in a way, to allow less fortunate countries to get vaccines.
In the meantime, we saw a type of vaccine diplomacy. For example, we saw China ally with Serbia to distribute the Sinopharm vaccines. In exchange, China wanted everyone to kowtow to it. China also intervened a great deal in Africa.
In your opinion, are COVAX and this type of vaccine diplomacy not at odds with each other or does one help the other? Should COVAX not be used to temper this type of vaccine diplomacy, which serves its own interests? On the contrary, does it help COVAX when China unilaterally decides to provide doses to less fortunate countries?