The Diplomat
The Colombian Government received this past Monday a batch of 957,600 AstraZeneca vaccines donated by Spain through the COVAX platform, on the eve of the official visit that President Iván Duque will make to our country.
“This is an important donation,” declared the Colombian president. “It is the most relevant donation we have received at this moment from a European country, through COVAX, but it is also made with a very important collaboration of the diplomatic and technical team of the European Union in our country”, he added through the Presidency’s website.
The donation, which arrived at the Ministry of Health warehouses in Bogota in the early hours of Monday morning (local time) in the presence of the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Spain, Aleix Garau Montané, is in addition to the 160,000 doses that Spain has donated bilaterally and that will arrive in Colombia in the coming days, for a total of 1,117,600 vaccines. “We value this donation that the Kingdom of Spain is making to our country, of approximately one million one hundred thousand vaccines, of which we are receiving 957,000, through the COVAX platform,” Duque added. For his part, Aleix Garau Montané declared that Spain is in solidarity with the Colombian Government and is the first donor country of the European Union in Latin America.
“This donation represents support for the efforts of the national government in the actions implemented to provide an effective health response to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 and to facilitate the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery process,” the Colombian Foreign Ministry stated. “It also contributes to the strengthening of the ties of friendship that have characterized the relationship between the two countries and will benefit the health of Colombian citizens,” it added.
Iván Duque will arrive tomorrow in Spain for a two-day official visit, coinciding with the Madrid Book Fair, in which Colombia is featured as a guest country and whose inauguration was attended last Friday by Colombia’s Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marta Lucía Ramírez. “I will be visiting the Kingdom of Spain to attract investment to Colombia, make progress in trade issues and continue strengthening our relationship on health issues, in the part of prevention and attention to such a calamitous situation for the world as has been the COVID-19,” said the president.
According to the agenda, Duque will meet tomorrow with King Felipe VI at the Zarzuela Palace and with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at the Moncloa Palace. Besides, during the visit, several cooperation instruments will be signed for the creation of the Colombia-Spain High Level Commission and in the areas of investment promotion and protection, security and culture. Duque’s trip to Spain is part of an official tour of several European countries and will address, among other issues, the negotiations for the signing of economic agreements with the European Union.
