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.
Last month, Spain sent 101,760 vaccine doses to Perú (first and second pictures), 201,600 to Guatemala, 253,440 to Paraguay, and 97,920 to Nicaragua, via a trilateral deal with Covax, the Spanish government, and Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Nicaragua is set to receive a total of 431,620 doses from Spain, and this will not be affected by the diplomatic tensions between the two countries caused by the latter's foreign affairs ministry criticising the former's current leader, Daniel Ortega, for imprisoning 32 opposition politicians and declaring their parties illegal ahead of the Nicaraguan general elections.
Today (Friday), Spain sent a batch of 101,760 vaccines to Ecuador, and in the next week or two, deliveries of roughly 100,000 to 300,000, depending upon population size, will be sent to Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Surinam and Jamaica.
Spain's foreign affairs ministry opted to speed up and bring forward 80% of the Latin America and Caribbean donations, aiming to have dispatched this amount before the end of August.
