The Minister of Health of Panama, Luis Francisco Sucre, presented a criminal complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday for a clandestine vaccination meeting against covid-19 discovered in a commercial premises in the country’s capital.
The illegal vaccination was denounced by the newspaper La Prensa, which published on Tuesday a report that includes the observations of one of its journalists infiltrated in a commercial building located in a wealthy neighborhood of the capital, where the Pfizer preparation was allegedly being applied to about a score of people who would have bought it.
The anticovid vaccines have been approved worldwide only for “emergency use”, so their commercialization is not allowed and only the States can acquire and distribute them, recalled the Panamanian authorities. In this country, vaccination against the coronavirus is public and free, and at the moment it is carried out only with preparations from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
“We cannot say if (the supposed vaccines applied in the clandestine center) were Pfizer, AstraZeneca, if they were real vaccines or where they came from. There is not a single private company that has delivered complete documentation to bring vaccines to Panama, “Sucre told reporters upon arrival at the headquarters of the Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office).
This same Tuesday the head of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) ordered an “urgent investigation” of the matter. “We will be energetic and those who are responsible for this crime will be punished,” he added on his Twitter account.
The regional director of Health of the metropolitan area, Israel Cedeño, said for his part that the origin of the vaccines inoculated in the clandestine center is unknown, if they were illegally extracted from the Minsa or if they were forgeries, although he stressed that the official controls of vaccines are ironclad and each of the available doses is counted.
“FOOL, BRUTE” PEOPLE RISK WITH ILLEGAL VACCINATION
Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo called “stupid, brute, who do not love (themselves) or their loved ones” the people who lend themselves to receive a vaccine illegally in Panama.
Legal vaccination is in the hands of the Panamanian State and it is the only one that guarantees that an original and safe inoculation is being applied, said Cortizo, and assured that the Government is “prepared to continue vaccinating legally.”
“Vaccines in the Republic of Panama, under the administration of ‘Nito’ Cortizo Cohen, are not paid for. Nobody has to pay a penny ”, added the head of state.
This is not the first scandal surrounding the vaccination against covid-19 in Panama, since inoculations have been reported to state officials, family members and friends outside the official schedule divided into phases, although finally these operations had the official endorsement , according to the authorities themselves.
Panama, which began a national vaccination program against covid-19 on January 20, has received around 1.4 million vaccines. Of these, 314,400 are from AstraZeneca through the Covax mechanism, from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the rest are from Pfizer, the main supplier in the country.
Pfizer’s vaccine is applied to those over 60 years of age, people with chronic diseases and priority groups established in a four-phase vaccination plan, while AstraZeneca is applied to men and women over 30 years who sign up as volunteers in a record.
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