Spanish re/insurer Mapfre commits €5m to COVID-19 research

Re/insurer Mapfre has committed €5 million to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) to accelerate the research and investigation into COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, the worst affected country in Europe after Italy.

The contribution will enable a comprehensive study of this pandemic in order to facilitate a vaccine against the virus. Spain’s CSIC was instrumental in obtaining the vaccine that allowed fighting SARS 2002.

As part of its broad action plan against coronavirus, the company has also announced a set of measures in Spain at a cost of €30 million, aimed at protecting the activity of self-employed and SMEs during the crisis. Mapfre will discount the part of the insurance premiums that cover the professional activity corresponding to the confinement period in its policies.

“Companies, as corporate citizens, must also have a relevant role participating in public-private alliances such as this that allow the fight against the pandemic to be accelerated,” said Antonio Huertas, president of Mapfre. “It is at these times when we have to take firm steps that help society to overcome this extraordinary situation, and contribute to the way out of this crisis with the least possible impact. We are all called to coordinated and solidary action, we are very proud to contribute to the research that CSIC is leading, and we hope that more entities will join this effort to achieve the vaccine that the world population needs.”

Rosa Menéndez, president of CSIC, stated that “this donation represents a considerable boost for the CSIC teams. We are already working to unravel the keys to the new coronavirus, but we are also launching more than 50 coordinated projects to jointly address the challenge posed by the pandemic. These are projects that range from biotechnology and diagnostic nanosensors to mathematical models to understand the spread of the disease. MAPFRE’s support will allow us to accelerate these projects.”