The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday that Spain will donate 15 million vaccines through the COVAX mechanism, which will be added to the 7.5 million announced last April during the Ibero-American Summit in Andorra.
Sánchez made this announcement during his speech at the virtual GAVI COVAX Advance Market Commitment Summit, organized by the Government of Japan and which brought together world leaders from all continents, companies, civil society and technical partners to raise funds to finance the advance purchase of vaccines under the multilateral COVAX initiative.
COVAX is a mechanism co-led by the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), the Coalition for Promoting Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all countries around the world. It is also one of the three pillars of the COVID-19 Access to Tools Accelerator (ACT), a WHO and G20 initiative co-led by Spain and many other countries.
During his speech, Pedro Sánchez reiterated his message that “we will only be safe from the virus when everyone on the planet is safe” and announced that Spain will contribute 15 million vaccines “through COVAX”, which will be added to the donation of 7.5 million for Latin America announced by our country last April, “bringing the total to 22.5 million vaccines by the end of 2021”.
He also assured that Spain will contribute another 50 million euros to COVAX through GAVI, which “brings to 108 million euros the total amount of aid that Spain will allocate to international efforts in the fight against COVID-19”. The head of the Executive also reported that the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is collaborating with C-TAP -an initiative launched in 2020 by Costa Rica to grant an open license to a new diagnostic test for COVID-19- in the development of a serological test that would make it possible to differentiate with 99% reliability the antibodies produced by vaccination from those produced by infection with the virus.
Pedro Sánchez also presented the Solidarity Vaccination Plan launched by the Government and expressed his support for the implementation, as soon as possible, of the EU Vaccine Exchange Mechanism. “Only by leading by example will we be effective in calling for solidarity, and only with solidarity will we be able to overcome this crisis and heal the wounds of our societies”, concluded the President of the Government.
