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WHO says: “Thank you, Spain”
09/12/2021
A COUNTRY must be doing something right when it gets a personal thanks from the World Health Organisation just as a pandemic affecting every continent is coming up to its second anniversary – so Spain can certainly take heart from a recent message praising its anti-Covid stratetgies.
At the time of publication, 38 million residents – including non-official residents, such as undocumented migrants – had had at least two doses of the vaccine, or a minimum of one for the single-jab Janssen formula, or nearly 81% of the entire national population.
Among the target population – adults and teenagers of 12 years and above – nine in 10 are fully jabbed, and those who are not have all been given the opportunity.
Footage of quarter-mile-long foot queues outside Dénia (northern Alicante province) hospital earlier this week in response to an appointment-free open vaccine morning shows that those who have not yet had their jab because they were either unable to make the initial summons or decided against it have now changed their minds.
All adults aged 70 or over have now, in theory, been given a third dose along with their annual 'flu jab, and now the December 6 and 8 bank holidays are over, many local health authorities are focusing on treble-jabbing the 60-69 age group.
Also, children aged from five to 11 inclusive will start getting their first doses of the Pfizer formula, with the second at eight weeks, from the middle of December.
All this makes Spain a world leader in number of inhabitants vaccinated, coupled with the country's having signed up to the WHO's vaccine donation scheme for poorer countries, with millions of doses already shipped to Latin America and set to be delivered to refugee camps worldwide.
“Many thanks, health minister and Spain, for your strong leadership and for walking the talk for #VaccinEquity!” wrote the WHO's director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (pictured above), on his official Twitter site.
“I hope the rest of the world will follow your lead. We must speed up and ramp up our actions to save lives.”
He retweeted a post by Spain's health minister Carolina Darías, reading: “Europe can and must contribute to the WHO's objectives of vaccinating 70% of the global population by 2022.
“Solidarity is not a word. It's a matter of political will.”
Carolina Darías published this as a caption to a video of her giving a speech, subtitled: “We have to vaccinate our Europeans first, but also we have to vaccinate and donate vaccines to the rest of the world.”
As well as having donated vaccines via the WHO's COVAX scheme, Spain's 'world leadership' includes having become the first European Union country, as at Tuesday this week (December 7), to have immunised 100% of its inhabitants aged 80 and over.
Spain is, additionally, focusing 'in a determined manner' on the third or booster dose as a safeguard against the latest Covid virus mutation, known as Omicron.
“Our aim is for the 60-plus aged population to have had their third dose before the end of 2021, as well as all those working in the health and care professions,” Sra Darías has announced.
“We're keeping up a good pace. Nearly 70% of the 70-plus age group have had theirs.”
Concerning Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus' comments on Spain's 'walking the talk' with the COVAX scheme, Sra Darías says: “Nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
To date, she reveals, Spain has administered over 76 million doses of the various types of Covid vaccine, and has donated over 40 million doses to dozens of countries in Africa and Latin America.
Related Topics
A COUNTRY must be doing something right when it gets a personal thanks from the World Health Organisation just as a pandemic affecting every continent is coming up to its second anniversary – so Spain can certainly take heart from a recent message praising its anti-Covid stratetgies.
At the time of publication, 38 million residents – including non-official residents, such as undocumented migrants – had had at least two doses of the vaccine, or a minimum of one for the single-jab Janssen formula, or nearly 81% of the entire national population.
Among the target population – adults and teenagers of 12 years and above – nine in 10 are fully jabbed, and those who are not have all been given the opportunity.
Footage of quarter-mile-long foot queues outside Dénia (northern Alicante province) hospital earlier this week in response to an appointment-free open vaccine morning shows that those who have not yet had their jab because they were either unable to make the initial summons or decided against it have now changed their minds.
All adults aged 70 or over have now, in theory, been given a third dose along with their annual 'flu jab, and now the December 6 and 8 bank holidays are over, many local health authorities are focusing on treble-jabbing the 60-69 age group.
Also, children aged from five to 11 inclusive will start getting their first doses of the Pfizer formula, with the second at eight weeks, from the middle of December.
All this makes Spain a world leader in number of inhabitants vaccinated, coupled with the country's having signed up to the WHO's vaccine donation scheme for poorer countries, with millions of doses already shipped to Latin America and set to be delivered to refugee camps worldwide.
“Many thanks, health minister and Spain, for your strong leadership and for walking the talk for #VaccinEquity!” wrote the WHO's director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (pictured above), on his official Twitter site.
“I hope the rest of the world will follow your lead. We must speed up and ramp up our actions to save lives.”
He retweeted a post by Spain's health minister Carolina Darías, reading: “Europe can and must contribute to the WHO's objectives of vaccinating 70% of the global population by 2022.
“Solidarity is not a word. It's a matter of political will.”
Carolina Darías published this as a caption to a video of her giving a speech, subtitled: “We have to vaccinate our Europeans first, but also we have to vaccinate and donate vaccines to the rest of the world.”
As well as having donated vaccines via the WHO's COVAX scheme, Spain's 'world leadership' includes having become the first European Union country, as at Tuesday this week (December 7), to have immunised 100% of its inhabitants aged 80 and over.
Spain is, additionally, focusing 'in a determined manner' on the third or booster dose as a safeguard against the latest Covid virus mutation, known as Omicron.
“Our aim is for the 60-plus aged population to have had their third dose before the end of 2021, as well as all those working in the health and care professions,” Sra Darías has announced.
“We're keeping up a good pace. Nearly 70% of the 70-plus age group have had theirs.”
Concerning Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus' comments on Spain's 'walking the talk' with the COVAX scheme, Sra Darías says: “Nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
To date, she reveals, Spain has administered over 76 million doses of the various types of Covid vaccine, and has donated over 40 million doses to dozens of countries in Africa and Latin America.
Related Topics
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