First modification: 07/02/2021 – 18:38Last modification: 07/02/2021 – 18:37
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Five (AFP)
A first batch of 300,000 doses of vaccines from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm will arrive in Peru this Sunday to begin immunization against the coronavirus when the country faces the second wave of the pandemic.
The shipment of vaccines will arrive at Jorge Chávez del Callao airport at night on a flight from Beijing that made a stop at the Parisian Charles de Gaulle airport in France.
By land and air, more than 1,000 policemen will transfer the batch of vaccines to the warehouses of the National Center for Supply of Strategic Health Resources (Cenares) in Callao where they will enter for distribution.
The 300,000 doses that will arrive will be joined by another 700,000 from the Sinopharm laboratory that are scheduled to leave China on February 13.
This first batch will immunize 150,000 people from health personnel “most exposed” by the high levels of contagion of covid-19.
The Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti reported that immunization will begin in Lima and El Callao (a neighboring port city to the capital) on Tuesday afternoon, 9, while the vaccines transported to the interior of the country by the Armed Forces will be available from Wednesday 10, always following security protocols.
The interim president of Peru, Francisco Sagasti, will be the first person to be vaccinated.
“He wanted to be vaccinated at the end but that is not logical, he is the symbol, he has to be vaccinated first than us, and then all health personnel,” said Mazzetti.
The Peruvian government, criticized for its delay in purchasing the vaccines while neighboring countries such as Chile or Bolivia have already started immunization, announced this week that it will receive 20 million doses of the vaccine from the US group Pfizer, whose first batch of 250,000 units will arrive in March.
The government is also negotiating agreements with Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Sinovac laboratories, as the government advanced a few weeks ago.
Peru also bought 14 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, due to arrive after September.
The Andean country hopes to obtain a total of 52 million doses to vaccinate 26 million people, since each one must receive two injections. The Peruvian population is 33 million.
Peru reported 1.1 million confirmed cases and 42,121 deaths from covid-19 as of Saturday, with 13,086 people hospitalized in a health system on the brink of collapse, with serious medical oxygen deficiencies.
The country is now in a targeted quarantine that includes Lima and nine other regions, due to a sharp increase in infections, deaths and hospitalizations.
© 2021 AFP
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