Croatia donates €1 mn for coronavirus vaccine development, €7.4 bn raised

ZAGREB, May 4 (Hina) – Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has said that in addition to the €2 million it has already set aside for national coronavirus vaccine research and development, Croatia will donate an additional €1 million for that purpose.

Plenkovic made the statement at a virtual donors’ conference for the development of the Covid-10 vaccine, at which a total of €7.4 billion was pledged.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who hosted the donors’ conference, said that €7.4 million was raised in total for the development and research of the vaccine against the coronavirus.

The proclaimed goal of the conference was to raise €7.5 billion in the first stage, of which €4 billion would be used to develop the vaccine, €2 billion for treatment, and €1.5 billion for testing.

We have done it. We have €7.4 billion in contributions, said von der Leyen.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that “in addition to the €2 million we have set aside at the national level, we will donate another €1 million to this conference”.

He said that Croatia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, was honoured to support the initiative.

Plenkovic also noted that quarantine was first introduced in Dubrovnik in 1377 and that the same method was used today in the fight against the coronavirus.

Plenkovic also emphasised the role of Andrija Stampar, one of the founders of the World Health Organisation, and mentioned the success of an interdisciplinary team of Croatian scientists who had sequenced the genome of the virus that causes the Covid-19 infection, which will help determine the source of the infection and track it, as well as a therapy-vaccine project which is being developed by the MedILS science institute in Split.