EU announces Latin America vaccine tech aid

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez presented Wednesday a new initiative for vaccine cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries, increasing previous assistance to face the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President said "Vaccination is helping us to exit the pandemic slowly but surely, we must now step up the work to prepare better against future pandemics. For this, each country and each region has to ramp up its own capacity to manufacture and to administer vaccines. And this is what brings us here today”.

According to the EU officials, the new initiative is aimed at transferring technology and making it possible to develop it locally, sharing successful regulation policies and promoting pharmaceutical investments in the region. The EU is now defining the extent of the financial support "to the biotech sector in Cuba and Mexico," while "exploring options for support in Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Colombia."