SPAIN: In compliance with the commitment announced by the President of the Government at the Ibero-American Summit in Andorra, Spain has begun the donation of 7.5 million vaccines to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be distributed under the COVAX Mechanism. Following the agreement between AstraZeneca, COVAX and Spain, the first donations amounted to more than 750,000 doses and will be shipped to Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.
The Government of Spain has committed a total of 22.5 million doses of the vaccines authorised by the European Union and used in Spain, of which at least 7.5 million euros will be shipped to Ibero-American countries. The donations will be channeled through COVAX – a mechanism coordinated by the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the World Health Organization (WHO) – with the logistical support of UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), in line with Spain’s interest in structuring a multilateral response to the crisis brought about by COVID-19.
The distribution of the doses allocated to Latin America and the Caribbean is based on the epidemiological needs of the different countries in the region and the coordination of the actions of the different bodies involved in the COVAX program. This distribution will be progressive as Spain makes the vaccines available to the mechanism. The first beneficiary countries will be Paraguay, which will receive 252,000 doses; Guatemala, 201,600; Ecuador and Peru, 101,760 each, and Nicaragua: 97,920. The shipments will take place over the next few days.
Spain is also currently processing contributions to the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) for the sum of 125 million euros, in addition to a further contribution of 50 million Euros to COVAX through GAVI.
This all falls within the Universal Access Plan: Sharing Vaccines against COVID-19, “Solidarity in Vaccination”, approved by the Government of Spain in January this year, which defines the donation strategy. The main aim of this Plan is to contribute to guaranteeing fair, affordable, and universal access to the vaccine as a global public good, in order to respond to the call for solidarity from Spanish society.
Spain is coordinating the donation of vaccines with the EU and its Member States, which have contributed 2.47 billion euros to COVAX to date. The aim is to immunise at least 20% of the population of the 190 nations that comprise the mechanism before the end of the year.
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