In line with a pledge made at a global health summit held during Italy's G20 presidency last year, the country is gifting millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to Syria through the Covax global vaccine-sharing programme.
"Italy is giving doses via Covax on top of the 470 million dollars it has promised Covax Advance Market Commitment (AMC)," said Italy's charge d'affaires in Syria, Massimiliano D'Antuono.
"This donation in particular will allow a large number of people in Syria to be vaccinated," he added.
The Italian government is showing solidarity with the Syrian population in collaboration with European Union humanitarian aid operations, the UN children's fund UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, D'Antuono said.
"Italy supports the efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and more widely the consequences of the grave humanitarian situation throughout the country," D'Antuono stated.
Italy's generous and timely donation will help achieve a target of vaccinating most of Syria's population by the year's end, especially health workers and the poorest and most vulnerable, a foreign ministry statement said, citing EU, WHO and UNICEF representatives in Syria.
The donated vaccine doses can be conserved and transported with standard equipment allowing populations in remote areas of Syria to be vaccinated with a single dose, the statement noted.
The AMC was launched in June 2020 to finance equitable access in 92 lower-income countries.
