The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers authorized last Tuesday a voluntary contribution of two million euros to Unitaid, an international drug procurement service currently leading the “treatment pillar” of the World Health Organization (WHO) Plan against COVID-19.
Unitaid was created by agreement between WHO and five States (Brazil, France, Chile, Norway and the United Kingdom) with the aim of speeding up access to diagnostic methods and high-quality drugs in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the most affected developing countries. WHO is the host organization of Unitaid and provides its Secretariat, Trust Fund, administrative and fiduciary support and relevant facilities for the proper development of its work. On May 8, 2007, Spain acceded to the memorandum of understanding signed by the five founding countries and the World Health Organization. Apart from Spain, South Korea and the five states mentioned above are the only countries entitled to appoint a member of the Governing Board.
“We are currently in a moment of urgency and health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Council of Ministers recalled. In this context, it continued, the COVID-19 Access to COVID-19 Tool-Accelerator (ACT-A), framed within the World Health Organization’s Plan against the pandemic, has been launched. “One of the pillars on which the Plan is structured is the treatment pillar, led by Unitaid and whose purpose is to advance research into effective treatments and support countries to optimize clinical care,” the Executive added.
Last September, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced before the 76th General Assembly of the United Nations Spain’s intention to “contribute two million euros to Unitaid”, which will be added “to the 175 million euros that Spain has already dedicated to the development and production of vaccines between 2020 and 2021”.
