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2021-04-15 at 16h46

"In this pandemic, we all depend on each other"

Speech by the Prime Minister António Costa at COVAX AMC

"In this pandemic, we all depend on each other", stated Prime Minister António Costa during his intervention at the global COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) Investment Opportunity, which was held online.

The Prime Minister mentioned that "Covid-19 passes from person to person, from country to country, and from continent to continent", adding that "international solidarity is thus crucial to overcome this common challenge" and that COVAX "plays an important part in that process".

"The EU and its Member States are among the lead contributors to COVAX, with over 2.2 billion euros" and "853 million euros have already been mobilized by Team Europe to guarantee equitable access to vaccines", he said.

António Costa highlighted that "without international solidarity we cannot eradicate the pandemic from the entire world, whether in our neighbourhood, in Latin America and particularly in Africa".

He stated that "the pandemic has a disproportionate impact on those already most vulnerable" and that [it] "impacts the lives of hundreds of millions of people, in particular in lower income countries", and concluded that "for their sake and for own sake, support for global vaccination must be increased".

The high-level event in which the Prime Minister gave this speech was co-hosted by the United States and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and was chaired by the U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and by the Chair of the Board of GAVI, former portuguese Prime Minister Durão Barroso.

The main goal of the event was to take stock of the progress so far and launch GAVI’s ask of an additional USD 2 billion in 2021.

The COVAX AMC is a financing mechanism to provide up to 1.8 billion doses of vaccines for 92 lower-income countries. The list of potential recipients includes six Portuguese-speaking countries: Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, São Tomé e Príncipe, Cape Verde and East Timor.

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