Dominican Republic donates COVID-19 vaccines to neighbouring countries

New Delhi – Following upon the requests from various Central American and Caribbean nations, the Government of the Dominican Republic started last week the donation of Covid-19 vaccines to neighbouring countries. With this International Cooperation Program, an initiative of President Luis Abinader, the Dominican Republic aims to contribute to alleviate, in the region, the negative impact of the “unfair and unequal” international distribution of vaccines. 

Amongst the first recipients of these donations are the Central American countries of Guatemala and Honduras, with 304,000 and  and 101,000 doses respectively. Both deliveries were made on behalf of the Dominican Government by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roberto Álvarez, at the International Airport of Las Américas, in Santo Domingo. “It is a privilege to be able to contribute with these doses to our sister nations, given that our national vaccines inventory allows us to go forward with this profound act of solidarity” he expressed. In total, 505,000 doses manufactured by AstraZeneca will be distributed between the requesting nations.

In press release the Dominican authorities stated: “Now that our country has advanced in it’s vaccination program at the national level…we need to show other nations the solidarity we received in the past”. The Dominican Government recalled that it was able to start its vaccination campaign with the donations of 20,000 doses of Covishield vaccines, produced by AstraZeneca in the Serum Institute in Pune, as part of India’s “Vaccine Maitri" initiative.