Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis participated today, through a teleconference, in the donors’ conference in order to support the work of the World Health Organization and the scientific community for the development of rapid and equal access to diagnosis and cure of coronavirus, but also for the development of a vaccine, as part of the Coronavirus Global Response initiative.
The Prime Minister pointed out that the vaccine should be a global public good, by ensuring equal access to all countries to fight the pandemic, as the safety of each person leads to the safety of everyone.
You may find the entire intervention of the Prime Minister below:
“Thank you very much, dear Ursula von der Leyen. I would like to congratulate you for this very important initiative. This is an initiative that really brings the world together and joins our forces in the common fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Today is an important day for Greece. We are gradually beginning to ease the very restrictive lockdown measures that we have taken over the past seven weeks. We have been relatively successful in “flattening” the curve, but we all know that unless we find a vaccine, we will not be completely safe.
That is why discovering and proving the effectiveness of a vaccine is going to be one of the main challenges that the humanity will face, as a whole. But this in itself is not enough. The vaccine should be produced in sufficient quantities in the shortest possible time. It should be available, at an affordable price, to the entire global population, starting with the most vulnerable ones.
It needs to be distributed world-wide on an equitable basis. No country or region should have a monopolistic access to the vaccine. When it comes to infectious diseases, the safety of the one is the safety of all, as it was also mentioned by Melinda Gates.
Hence, I would endorse the call made by other leaders as well, who have participated in this pledge, that the vaccine – whenever it is found – should be declared as a global public good. I think that this is a principle that we must agree upon and I believe that this is an important message that we all need to send today.
From our part, I am pleased to pledge 3 million Euros to our common effort, in addition to those offered by the Greek institutions and private foundations which have already strongly committed to the fight against Covid-19 and will also actively contribute to this global call.
One last point: I wish we can show the same commitment to common action in addressing what is probably the largest challenge of our generation, climate change, which also requires a global response. Thank you very much.”
It should be reminded, that in an article published by the German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in April, the Prime Minister supported the proposal that European governments should jointly obtain the patents of new vaccines and diagnostic tests, thus maximising the spread of antiviral medicines as soon as possible and at more favourable prices.
In his intervention today, the Prime Minister emphasised the need for joint action against Covid-19, stressing the importance of taking similar initiatives against climate change.
