The presidents of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, and of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, complained this Tuesday about the vaccine distribution mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO), Covax, as, as they said, “it is a failure. “.
In a dialogue between leaders at the close of the XIII Ibero-American business meeting in Andorra, both were dissatisfied with the distribution of the sera through this fund, promoted by public and private actors which aims to guarantee fair access for all countries.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, as well as the President of that country, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Head of Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot, also took part in that dialogue, and it was moderated by the Ibero-American Secretary General, Rebeca Grynspan.
“The Covax system has been a failure, I myself have said it protested against that irresponsibility, where a small group of countries have all the vaccines and the large amount we don’t have access to,” protested Giammattei.
The president confirmed that of the three million doses that were to reach Guatemala through this mechanism“Only 81,000 arrived” and they’ve already gotten more -200,000- through a direct agreement with India.
“We bought Sputnik outside of the Covax mechanisms, which is a failure, we need a more supportive world,” he added.
The Dominican leader, for his part, shared the view of his counterpart, explaining that his country had already asked “to have an agreement on patents in order to produce” at the national level.
“It didn’t work out, I understand that every country wants to have vaccines for its people first, but I think we lacked creativity in that area,” said Abinader.