Dominican Republic & Guatemala Label COVAX Facility 'A Failure'

People mark a container holding doses of the AstraZeneca, in San Jose, Costa Rica, April 7, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @anadoluagency

 

20 April 2021 

Both countries also called 'irresponsible' those nations that have hoarded vaccines while the rest of the world have no way to immunize their people.

Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei and The Dominican Republic's President Luis Abinader on Tuesday described as a "failure" the fund for the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility.

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"The vaccine delivery system promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) is inefficient," Gianmmattei stressed during his speech at the Ibero-American Business Meeting in Andorra.

He also called it irresponsible that "small group of countries that have hoarded vaccines while the rest of the world, especially poor nations, have no way to immunize their people." 

To date, Guatemala has received only 80,000 out of the 3 million doses promised under the COVAX system.

The Dominican president Abinader urged a more supportive international cooperation to confront the health crisis, curb climate change, and reduce the gap between rich and poor countries.

"Let's think about what we have done wrong and how we can work better," he said and called on pharmaceutical companies to release patents so that vaccines can be produced in other countries.

"The global supply of COVID-19 vaccines is incredibly tight and the COVAX dose-sharing facility is unlikely to buy much more doses in 2021 than those already reserved," he concluded.

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