Latin America denounces vaccine hoarding

AFP  – Latin American countries denounced the hoarding of anti-covid vaccines by the richest nations and called for equitable access to them, at an Ibero-American Summit in Andorra.

In the plenary session in Soldeu, a town in this European microstate located between Spain and France, the majority of Latin American leaders intervened electronically, and their messages coincided: not enough vaccines arrive, keys to ending the pandemic and beginning the recovery post-covid.

“The most developed countries have developed hoarding policies (…) in contradiction with human solidarity,” said the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader.

access to vaccines against the coronavirus is one of the key topics of this meeting, which was attended in person only by the presidents of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and the heads of government of Andorra, Portugal, and Spain, also represented by King Felipe VI.

Latin America, the second most mourning region in the world with more than 873,000 deaths and 27.4 million infections (including the Caribbean), has vaccinated less than 10% of its population when it returns to living a serious health situation, with daily records of deaths and infections in several countries.

“The Covax initiative, although valuable, is clearly insufficient and must be strengthened,” said the Argentine, Alberto Fernández, referring to the mechanism to distribute vaccines, which has suffered delays and has delivered only three million doses to a Latin America with more of 600 million inhabitants.

The leaders still have to approve the final declaration of the summit, but the Ibero-American Secretary General, Rebeca Grynspan, announced that “a very strong call will come out of it, with a very robust political voice, to effectively ask for a much more equitable and universal distribution of vaccines ”.

Although the health issue united the region, Venezuela divided it, with several presidents charging against the government of Nicolás Maduro, who did not participate and was represented by his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez