Portugal has already delivered 1.2 million doses of vaccines to the PALOP and Timor-Leste
“Right now, of the 3 million doses that we said in July that we would donate to the PALOP and Timor-Leste, 1.217 million doses of vaccines have been delivered, including the batch delivered on Tuesday to Mozambique and the which will arrive in Angola today, “said Augusto Santos Silva, on the sidelines of the signing of a protocol with TAP, which will allow free transport of these vaccines on commercial flights.
“The program began in May this year, with Cape Verde, and at this time all the PALOP and Timor-Leste are receiving vaccines, and support was given to Brazil in the form of medicines and other materials for treatment in the most critical period of the pandemic under this program that runs until 2022, “added the ruler.
The vaccine donation program to Portuguese-speaking African countries and to Brazil and Timor-Leste, among others, “is part of a national effort that the Government has defined since the beginning of the fight against the pandemic, in the first half of 2020”, which resulted in vaccinating the Portuguese population and, in parallel, donating vaccines to the traditional partners of national cooperation.
Asked by Lusa about whether Equatorial Guinea has also introduced vaccines or support from Portugal, the minister replied: “an Equatorial Guinea is among the PALOP and is involved in this program, but first, it is a small country that has a program of vaccination more advanced than other countries and, secondly, we start by favoring the partner countries of our cooperation with which we have a cooperation practice and logistics that allows us to be more effective in the displacement and distribution of vaccines”.
“It is natural that in countries with which we have installation logistics, the process is simpler and, therefore, a priority,” he said.
The agreement was signed this morning between TAP and Camões – Institute for Cooperation and Language, and provides for free transport on commercial flights of materials and vaccines from Portugal to the countries receiving this aid.
Covid-19 has caused at least 4,752,875 deaths worldwide, out of 232.27 million infections by the new coronavirus registered since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the Agence France-Presse.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.