Andalucia partners with UNICEF to purchase vaccines

ANDALUCIA partners with UNICEF to purchase vaccines. The Ministry of Equality, Social Policies and Conciliation, through the Andalusian Agency for Development Cooperation (AACID) has launched various actions with the aim of ensuring universal and equal access to the Covid-19 vaccine and therefore curb the expansion of the coronavirus in countries with fewer resources, where the pandemic has aggravated the humanitarian and social crises in which they were already involved. Equality will allocate €580,000 in collaboration with UNICEF and the Andalucian School of Public Health to facilitate vaccination processes in Africa and Latin America, which will allow, among other things, the acquisition of 400,000 doses to immunize the population in Mali.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been, among other things, an inescapable reminder that we live in a global and interconnected world and that, in the face of a global threat, the responses must be global, and that no one will be safe until all people are safe. “The inequality in access to vaccines not only appeals to ethical criteria”, states the Minister of Equality, Rocio Ruiz, alluding to the possible appearance of new variants in case of not containing the infection in a global way”. In addition, its exclusion effect on countries with less economic capacity necessarily translates into slower, more unjust and disparate economic recovery dynamics on a global scale.

The global concern to ensure rapid, fair and equitable access and distribution of tests, treatments and vaccines against Covid-19 led to the creation, already in the spring of 2020, of the ACT-A Mechanism, and, specifically, its COVAX component for vaccination. Co-led by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi), the Coalition for Innovation in Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO), COVAX faces the unprecedented logistical and health challenge of acquiring and distributing two billion doses of vaccines in 2021, of which more than 1.3 billion are destined for low- and lower-middle-income countries and humanitarian crisis contexts.