Lima, December 30 (EFE).- Peru will receive 1.5 million doses of the bivalent vaccine against covid-19 next January, which will be applied to the elderly, pregnant women, patients with diseases at risk and health personnel , the Ministry of Health (MINSA) confirmed this Friday.
The bivalent vaccine contains two different types of antigens, one of the original covid-19 strain (Wuhan) and another of the Omicron variant BA.4 and BA.5, and was developed by the pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech.
“We already have the protocol to continue with the vaccination process in the country and protect the risk group such as people over the age of 60, pregnant women, people with risk factors and health personnel”, he announced, in this regard. By the way, the Deputy Minister of Health Insurance and Benefits, Henry Rebaza.
The official confirmed that the country will receive the bivalent vaccine and said that during the transfer of functions to the government led by Dina Boluarte since last December 7, it was noted that another batch of about 500,000 doses of vaccines against the illness last November that had not been reported.
“The vaccine is a critical resource and we have not been notified of the existence of this vaccine, which is why we have made a very important decision to remove from office the entire team of the National Center for Strategic Health Resource Procurement (Cenares ) so as not to have any inconvenience and thus achieve a good result in the vaccination process,” he announced.
The Minsa added that in the coming days it will announce the start date of the new vaccination process and that the training of specialized personnel on the use of this vaccine is already underway.
In this sense, Rebaza urged citizens to go to vaccination centers and health facilities to complete their vaccination program against covid-19, as the country is currently experiencing a fifth wave.
The arrival of the first batch of the bivalent vaccine had already been announced last Sunday by the Minister of Health, Rosa Gutiérrez, who said that “it is essential to have this vaccine to continue protecting the country’s population”.
The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (INS) stressed, for its part, that the bivalent vaccine “will not only prevent hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units and deaths, but could also stop the transmission of the disease or asymptomatic infection”.
The Minsa reported that in the last few hours 2,120 new cases have been detected and 7 other people have died, while 439 remain hospitalized, of which 116 in intensive care units (Icu) with mechanical respiration.
In this way, Peru, which is the country with the highest disease mortality rate in the world, has reached a total of 4,454,236 million detected cases and 218,178 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. EFE extension
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