The Diplomat
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has sent a shipment of emergency aid to Guatemala to fight COVID-19, in response to a bilateral request from the Guatemalan government.
The shipment, consisting of 105,350 COVID-19 antigen tests donated by the Spanish Ministry of Health, arrived yesterday in Guatemala City. The Spanish Government is responding with this aid to a request from the Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance of the Republic of Guatemala, whose health centers were practically out of stock of diagnostic tests at the end of last month, the Agency said.
The Guatemalan Ministry will distribute the tests – valued at 474,075 euros – especially in the Guatemala Central Health Area in order to be able to diagnose patients in a timely manner and reduce the number of serious cases and deaths from the coronavirus. The shipment is part of the Team Europe initiative, under which the European Union will contribute 75% of the cost of sending the emergency aid.
Guatemala has almost 15,000 active cases of COVID-19, with a cumulative incidence of more than 1,500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a mortality rate of 49 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the latest official data. In addition, the total number of beds in the country for severe cases is 547, whose occupancy level at the end of May was 76%.
The arrival of the aid material in Guatemala comes on the eve of a new tour of Latin America by President of Government Pedro Sánchez, which will include a trip to Costa Rica to meet with the leaders of the Central American Integration System (SICA), made up of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, as well as the Dominican Republic as an associate country.
The President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, who will assume the pro tempore presidency of SICA on July 1 for a six-month period, recently announced his intention to meet with Sanchez in Costa Rica to request Spain’s support for access to COVID-19 vaccines. Last April, Giammattei himself took advantage of his official visit to Spain to learn in detail about the operation of the modular or field hospitals against COVID-19 in Valencia, Zaragoza and Madrid and to contract with the installation company, Arpa Equipos Móviles, for the construction of this type of facility in Guatemala.
