These positions were taken by António Costa in a pre-recorded intervention for an event promoted by Global Citizens, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that is launching a campaign to mobilize more funds for the global fight against covid-19 - a initiative supported by the European Commission.
In his brief speech, the leader of the Portuguese executive considered that "support for international vaccination is essential for the eradication of the covid-19 pandemic" and defended the thesis that "no country in the world will be safe until everyone is safe".
"In addition to funding the Covax Initiative, which aims to provide vaccines to 20 percent of the population in 92 countries, within the European Union we are working on a vaccine sharing mechanism that could provide additional doses of vaccines, Africa being naturally a priority ", pointed out the Prime Minister of Portugal, country that presides until June to the Council of the European Union.
According to the leader of the Portuguese executive, since the beginning of the pandemic "more than 3.5 million euros have been invested in means of prevention and combat, sending medical, protective, diagnostic and therapeutic material to the main cooperation partner countries. - the Portuguese speaking African countries (PALOP) and Timor-Leste ".
"We will remain committed to this path, and we will endeavor to redirect five percent of the vaccines acquired by Portugal to our traditional cooperation partners, following up on local training and capacity building. In this case, we really depend on each other and, for that, we really have to count on each other ", added António Costa.
On Monday, the United Nations (UN) announced that Cape Verde will be one of the first African countries to receive vaccines against covid-19 through the international Covax platform, with a view to immunizing 35 percent of the population.
Covax is a joint initiative of WHO and the Alliance for Access to Vaccines (GAVI) to provide vaccines against covid-19 to low- and middle-income countries.
According to the African Union's Disease Control and Prevention Center (Africa CDC), based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the African continent has so far recorded 3,830,631 cases of infection with the new coronavirus, including 101,350 deaths.
