Spain to donate six million Covid vaccines to Latin America and Caribbean this summer
Monday, August 16, 2021 @ 11:27 AM
SIX million doses of Covid vaccines will be donated this summer to various Caribbean and Latin American countries by Spain's government, the health ministry has announced.
President Pedro Sánchez had pledged to give away 22.5 million vaccines via the Covax programme, run by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and which aims to prevent a 'rich-poor divide' in the global battle against the pandemic by appealing to wealthier nations to donate to developing or third-world countries.
Sánchez said during this year's Ibero-American Summit in April, held in Andorra, that a third of Spain's donated vaccines would go to the Latin America and Caribbean region.
He promised to start the donations abroad as soon as 50% of Spain's population was fully immunised.
Even though Spain has very close ties with the bulk of this area, through historical, linguistic and cultural links, the countries earmarked for receiving donations are chosen by the Covax committee, so will be the same for all donor nations.
Covax uses criteria laid down by the Pan-American Health Organisation when working out which nations are most in need, based upon epidemiological necessities, general wealth, and population, among other factors.
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