The Diplomat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will hold today and tomorrow in Madrid the High Level Meeting of the GAP (Global Action Plan against COVID-19), an event that will host representatives from 35 countries and international organizations and in which the first 100% Spanish and 100% European vaccine will be presented: HIPRA.
As the Ministry informed in a press release, the meeting will bring together high-level representatives from 35 countries -with a special delegation from the United States-, and from organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), UNICEF, the Red Cross, the Global Network for Academic Public Health (GNAPH), the Spanish Medicines Agency, the European Commission or ISGlobal.
The event will be closed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and will be attended by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Global Affairs, Ángeles Moreno Bau, and the Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela Rodríguez.
The Global Action Plan (GAP) was created to follow up on the Global Summit on Covid-19: Ending the Pandemic and Rebuilding a Better Reality, convened by the United States in September 2021 and attended at the highest level by a hundred countries, as well as representatives of international organizations, NGOs and the private sector in the field of global health. The GAP was conceived with the aim of joining forces and improving international coordination to collectively overcome the pandemic by working on six “Lines of Effort”: vaccinate to protect the world’s population, strengthen the resilience of the supply chain, fight against misinformation, support health workers, guarantee medical treatment and strengthen the Global Health architecture.
The United States invited Spain, as a leading country in Global Health, to promote a new GAP High Level Meeting. The objectives of this week’s meeting in Madrid are to continue to drive international action on COVID-19, measure progress, outline measures to control the virus and strengthen global security. In addition, the final conclusions of the six “Lines of Effort” promoted at the GAP will be discussed.
According to Foreign Affairs, Spain is leading the fourth line of effort in the Global Action Plan: support for health workers. “The shortage of health workers is the biggest problem since the pandemic began and, according to two-thirds of WHO member states, is the main factor causing disruption to essential health services, posing the greatest barrier to diagnosis, therapy and vaccination,” the Ministry stressed. During this meeting, there will also be a debate on the different Global Health strategies, given the importance acquired after the pandemic, and the first 100% Spanish and 100% European vaccine, HIPRA, will be presented.
The vaccine is currently undergoing ongoing review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the step prior to marketing authorization. The multinational pharmaceutical company HIPRA, based in Amer (Girona), is currently starting a clinical trial to study its vaccine against COVID-19 as a fourth dose.
Finally, the meeting will also serve to prepare for the ministerial meeting convened by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, during the United Nations week in New York at the end of September, in which Spain will be co-hosting with the US Government, Bangladesh and Botswana.
