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Spain to donate surplus vaccines to third world and refugees, without affecting national immunisation programme
20/01/2021
SPAIN will donate a percentage of the vaccines against Covid it purchases to third-world countries, specifically to refugee and asylum-seeking communities in parts of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, where availability of immunisation drugs is not guaranteed for at least 20% of the population.
It is not yet clear how many of the 140 million doses due to arrive in Spain will be sent to these countries – most of which Spain already has humanitarian aid relations with – but the donations will not affect the roll-out nationally.
The speed at which Spain carries out its national immunisation programme is not dictated by availability or cost of vaccines, but by human resources and other facilities such as space – it would not be physically possible to jab everyone in the country within weeks, which is why vaccine doses are being 'drip-fed' into countries weekly, so supplies do not exceed storage or administration capacity and 'go off', being wasted.
The Council of Ministers has agreed on a Universal Charity Vaccination Access Plan which is separate to the European-wide programme aimed at donating around 5% of acquired vaccines to countries and communities in need.
Governments across the EU agree that until the whole world is vaccinated, nobody is completely safe, given that movement of people and goods will necessarily continue and could lead to the virus continuing to spread even after the first world is immunised.
Also, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that it would be a 'regrettable moral catastrophe' if wealthier countries, like Spain and the rest of Europe, failed to help out in getting the planet's poorest populations immunised.
Some of the most needy communities are, in fact, in Europe already: Refugee camps in Greece, still housing those displaced by the armed conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Libya, among others, have been homes to these people for many years, a situation that appears unlikely to change in the near future, and where Covid outbreaks can lead to widespread tragedy.
It is not clear, either, when Spain will start to donate vaccines, but this will probably be when the national immunisation programme is well under way with the most vulnerable residents and key or front-line workers' having all received their second doses, perhaps at a time when the only ones remaining are the physically-healthy under-65s who are not in high-risk jobs.
President Pedro Sánchez still needs to present Spain's proposals for vaccine donation to the Council of Europe for approval, a process which is expected to be imminent.
“There's no doubt that this pandemic is the biggest health problem to affect humanity in recent history, and we need to be working with other countries where their own difficulties prevent vaccines reaching them in the right quality, quantity and timescale,” says government spokeswoman and treasury minister María Jesús Montero.
One of the priority countries for donated vaccines is likely to be Rwanda, where the foreign affairs minister, Vicent Biruta, already appealed to his counterpart in Spain, Arancha González Laya, a month ago to be included in the scheme.
Rwanda is the first country to have openly and publicly asked Spain for help in this connection.
It is believed to be very likely that there will be surplus vaccines once the national programmes across Europe are complete – with the quota of Pfizer and Moderna jabs allocated to Spain in batches of approximately 350,000 a week, there will be enough to give a first dose and a booster to every one of the nation's 47.3 million inhabitants, with 32 million doses left over.
Based upon two doses per person, this means Spain alone will have capacity to vaccinate 16 million people in the third world.
As yet, it is not clear how often people will have to be vaccinated against Covid for, since neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna jabs are thought to give lifelong immunity, but by the time the population is coming up for its boosters, the laboratories will have been able to produce an additional, similar quantity to those ordered in for the year 2021.
Another potential sticking point is storage – for the Pfizer injections, regional health authorities across Spain have had to buy freezers capable of reaching temperatures of -80ºC, which may be more difficult to source for third-world nations and could mean immunisation in these countries takes longer if batches have to be transported and immediately administered.
The Pfizer doses are being delivered to countries in special packaging which keeps them at the required temperature, and which they can be kept in once they arrive, but ultra-chilled freezer units are necessary in case this packaging fails.
Europe is aiming for a minimum of 20% of third-world nations' populations to be vaccinated, in addition to any special requests for help, such as the appeal from Rwanda.
Related Topics
SPAIN will donate a percentage of the vaccines against Covid it purchases to third-world countries, specifically to refugee and asylum-seeking communities in parts of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, where availability of immunisation drugs is not guaranteed for at least 20% of the population.
It is not yet clear how many of the 140 million doses due to arrive in Spain will be sent to these countries – most of which Spain already has humanitarian aid relations with – but the donations will not affect the roll-out nationally.
The speed at which Spain carries out its national immunisation programme is not dictated by availability or cost of vaccines, but by human resources and other facilities such as space – it would not be physically possible to jab everyone in the country within weeks, which is why vaccine doses are being 'drip-fed' into countries weekly, so supplies do not exceed storage or administration capacity and 'go off', being wasted.
The Council of Ministers has agreed on a Universal Charity Vaccination Access Plan which is separate to the European-wide programme aimed at donating around 5% of acquired vaccines to countries and communities in need.
Governments across the EU agree that until the whole world is vaccinated, nobody is completely safe, given that movement of people and goods will necessarily continue and could lead to the virus continuing to spread even after the first world is immunised.
Also, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that it would be a 'regrettable moral catastrophe' if wealthier countries, like Spain and the rest of Europe, failed to help out in getting the planet's poorest populations immunised.
Some of the most needy communities are, in fact, in Europe already: Refugee camps in Greece, still housing those displaced by the armed conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Libya, among others, have been homes to these people for many years, a situation that appears unlikely to change in the near future, and where Covid outbreaks can lead to widespread tragedy.
It is not clear, either, when Spain will start to donate vaccines, but this will probably be when the national immunisation programme is well under way with the most vulnerable residents and key or front-line workers' having all received their second doses, perhaps at a time when the only ones remaining are the physically-healthy under-65s who are not in high-risk jobs.
President Pedro Sánchez still needs to present Spain's proposals for vaccine donation to the Council of Europe for approval, a process which is expected to be imminent.
“There's no doubt that this pandemic is the biggest health problem to affect humanity in recent history, and we need to be working with other countries where their own difficulties prevent vaccines reaching them in the right quality, quantity and timescale,” says government spokeswoman and treasury minister María Jesús Montero.
One of the priority countries for donated vaccines is likely to be Rwanda, where the foreign affairs minister, Vicent Biruta, already appealed to his counterpart in Spain, Arancha González Laya, a month ago to be included in the scheme.
Rwanda is the first country to have openly and publicly asked Spain for help in this connection.
It is believed to be very likely that there will be surplus vaccines once the national programmes across Europe are complete – with the quota of Pfizer and Moderna jabs allocated to Spain in batches of approximately 350,000 a week, there will be enough to give a first dose and a booster to every one of the nation's 47.3 million inhabitants, with 32 million doses left over.
Based upon two doses per person, this means Spain alone will have capacity to vaccinate 16 million people in the third world.
As yet, it is not clear how often people will have to be vaccinated against Covid for, since neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna jabs are thought to give lifelong immunity, but by the time the population is coming up for its boosters, the laboratories will have been able to produce an additional, similar quantity to those ordered in for the year 2021.
Another potential sticking point is storage – for the Pfizer injections, regional health authorities across Spain have had to buy freezers capable of reaching temperatures of -80ºC, which may be more difficult to source for third-world nations and could mean immunisation in these countries takes longer if batches have to be transported and immediately administered.
The Pfizer doses are being delivered to countries in special packaging which keeps them at the required temperature, and which they can be kept in once they arrive, but ultra-chilled freezer units are necessary in case this packaging fails.
Europe is aiming for a minimum of 20% of third-world nations' populations to be vaccinated, in addition to any special requests for help, such as the appeal from Rwanda.
Related Topics
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