In recent weeks, Italy began donating millions of doses of the coronavirus vaccine to developing and poor countries, where the proportion of the vaccinated population is very low due to a shortage of vaccines. The Italian government has pledged to donate 15 million doses during the year and contribute €385 million to the international COVAX programme. Currently, 2.4 million doses have been shipped to three countries: Tunisia has received 1.5 million doses at the end of July, on Vietnam 812 thousand doses, while the last pregnancy was 100 thousand doses I sent In Iraq on September 12.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs announce In addition to allocating more than 1.8 million doses that have not yet been shipped. They will be sent to Albania, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, Libya and Yemen. Currently, the remaining doses, 11 million, have not been allocated to any country. in a noteThe State Department said the donations were made “to support the importance of equitable and universal access to vaccines, treatments and testing based on the principle of international solidarity.”
These donations were also made possible thanks to the vaccines provided by AstraZeneca e don’t distribute To vaccination points for express request From areas you no longer want to manage. As early as mid-July, the commissioner asked the Anglo-Swedish company to stop delivering the doses stipulated in contracts: according to another Table published by the Ministry of HealthIn the third quarter of 2021, Italy is expected to receive 26 million doses of AstraZeneca, which will not be used in the vaccination campaign. The first shipments of vaccines abroad were related to AstraZeneca doses that remained in the warehouses of the Commissar’s structure, in Pratica di Mare, in Lazio.
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In addition to international solidarity, one of the principles that inspired the COVAX program is the awareness of the need to tackle the pandemic on a global scale. The redistribution of doses from rich countries, which have them in abundance, to the poorest, where few people joined the vaccination campaigns due to lack of doses, is very important because it allows to limit the spread of the virus and its mutations, which with the emergence of variables that are difficult to contain.
Among the countries that pledged more vaccines, the United States with 290 million doses, the United Kingdom with 80 million, France 54 million, Canada 40.7 million, Germany 30 million and Spain 22.5 million.
L ‘idea From COVAX (Vaccines for COVID-19 and Global Access) born in the first months of 2020: the spread of the coronavirus in many countries besides China, where the first infected person was found, prompted those responsible for GAVI – a non-profit organization to spread vaccines in the poorest countries – and that CEPI The Coalition for Financing Epidemic Solutions – to form a new entity to manage the reservation and distribution of vaccines.
For the past 20 years, GAVI has been involved in collecting requests and offers from governments, then negotiating supplies with pharmaceutical companies. An extensive centralized system allowed producers to enter into long-term contracts that lowered prices, with benefits for the governments of poorer countries. In recent years, the GAVI Alliance has made it possible to immunize more than 800 million children against meningitis, measles, polio and various other diseases, preventing millions of deaths.
(Press Office of the Commissioner’s Office / La Presse)
Since its inception, the COVAX program has raised more than $10 billion and promises to provide at least 1.8 billion doses to 100 poor countries within the first few months of next year. Despite the promises, the delivery plan ran into some problems, especially due to the policies of rich countries that considered collecting as many doses as possible. According to plans announced at the start of the program, COVAX was to allow poor and developing countries to receive vaccines at the same time as rich countries, with a proportional distribution to the population as well as priority departments for health workers and the vulnerable.
Upon reaching 20 percent of the vaccinated population in each country, the distribution criteria will then be changed to prioritize countries most at risk. However, the plans were not respected: the richer countries entered into direct agreements with producers, with exclusive reservations and at higher and more favorable prices for pharmaceutical companies. The situation has improved in recent weeks: many countries, including Italy, have begun to donate the promised doses. But it is not excluded that deliveries in the coming months may slow down compared to the expected pace: the choice of management third dose A vaccine to help maintain protection could lead rich countries to withhold some promised vaccines.
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