Madrid, (EFE) through Spain and Portugal for 25 days.
The 39 expedition members arrived yesterday from eleven Ibero-American countries to the Spanish capital to begin this adventure in which they will honor the Balmis Expedition (1803-1810), considered the first global vaccination, which was led by Spanish doctors Francisco Javier Balmis and José Salvany and nurse Isabel Zendal.
In 2022, in the first edition of this project, another 39 young Ibero-Americans paid homage to the first world circumnavigation carried out by the sailors Juan Sebastián Elcano and Fernando de Magallanes (1519-1522).
The Balmis Expedition managed to keep the vaccine active during transoceanic voyages through 22 orphaned children who carried the antidote in their bodies, the only way then known. The reason the carriers were children was because they, being younger, would have been less exposed to the virus.
Today in Madrid, these young people were able to learn about the work of the Spanish Agency for Cooperation, where the head of the Department of Coordination of Cultural and Scientific Relations, Santiago Sierra, valued the expedition as “a project rooted in the future and in our roots.”
For her part, Marta Morgade, Vice Chancellor for Social Commitment and Sustainability at the Autonomous University of Madrid, hoped that for young people “the expedition would be an antidote to intolerance that could spread” wherever they go.
Along these lines, Jesús Luna, the person in charge of the project, asked “to be able to transfer this vaccine against all these pandemics that we are experiencing today.”
A close visit to the Spanish Senate and its president
The project participants also went to the Upper House and were received by the president of the institution, Ander Gil, who gave them time to share ideas.
“That you are here, in the Senate, is an opportunity to open its doors and receive this representation of citizens from different parts of the world,” he said.
He also highlighted that the participating boys and girls are “bearers of culture and coexistence in the face of some current viruses such as hate speech, speech that goes against democracy”
Later, they toured the inside of the Senate, accompanied by a guide from the Upper House, who told them about the origin and the changes that the building has undergone in recent centuries.
At the end of the visit, they met Gil again and took a photo all together in the Plaza Marina Española.
The project is sponsored by AECID, supported by the Ibero-American General Secretariat, the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities and the Autonomous University of Madrid.
It also has the sponsorship of the Spanish Senate and the Fifth Centenary of the first Tour of the World; the Panama Jack equipment and the collaboration of Iberdrola, Renfe, LG and Pilot. EFE