The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced yesterday that Spain has already fulfilled its commitment to donate 30 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 and expects to reach 50 million in the first quarter of 2022.
“We are in a position to demonstrate that it is possible to lead national vaccination and lead global vaccination at the same time, and we can be proud of it,” said Pedro Sánchez during his participation in the event Vaccination in solidarity: fulfilling commitments, in which he was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; and the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias.
“We have achieved three major objectives in record time,” he continued: the donation to the COVAX mechanism of more than 30 million doses of vaccine against COVID-19 before the end of 2021 -of which more than 7.5 million have reached Latin America-, the release of the patent of the CSIC serological test for the detection of the virus and the administration of the complete vaccine regimen to 89% of the Spanish population over 12 years of age.
Regarding the first objective, he continued, Spain has committed to continue donating vaccines until reaching 50 million doses during the first quarter of 2022. “Priority has been given to Latin America, our sister region, and we are now allocating great efforts to the Southern neighborhood and sub-Saharan Africa, our neighboring region,” he stated. “We will do everything we can to provide vaccines to those in the most vulnerable situations: people living in humanitarian corridors. It is an ethical and moral obligation, which is why we will donate more than two million doses to these contexts,” he added.
Regarding the second objective mentioned, Sanchez recalled that Spain has reached an agreement with the WHO to openly license a test for COVID-19 developed in Spain by CSIC scientists. The technology, which is capable of differentiating with 99% reliability the antibodies produced by vaccination from those produced by COVID-19 infection, can be a very useful diagnostic tool for countries with fewer resources.
“We need to maximize global vaccine production capacity, guarantee the proper functioning of supply chains, eliminate trade barriers and logistical obstacles and ensure sufficient transport, storage and distribution capacity,” said the President of the Government during the event, which was attended by the director of the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products, María Jesús Lamas; the CEO of COVAX, Seth Berkley; the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen; the president of Astra Zeneca Spain, Rick R. Suarez; and WHO Director General, Thedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who congratulated Spain for being the fifth country in the world in the delivery of solidarity vaccines and encouraged other countries to follow suit.
