Between February 16, 2021 and February 28, 2022, the country placed 15,252,198 doses.
The Dominican population has been vaccinated against the disease with doses from the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sinovac and Sinopharm.
In October 2020, the Health Cabinet announced the contracting of 10 million vaccines with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca-BioNtech for an amount of US$40 million, this being the first major effort by the authorities to guarantee the biological for the population.
Of those 10 million doses agreed by the State Only 588,397 have been applied until January 18, 2022.
AstraZeneca’s problems
With the arrival of the pandemic, the Dominican government began a search to bring the vaccines to the country that would help inoculate the population against the Covid-19 virus.
Seven months after signing the agreement to acquire the AstraZeneca vaccine, no shipment of this vaccine had yet reached the national territory. The European pharmaceutical company repeatedly failed to comply with the preliminary delivery schedule for inoculations with the Dominican authorities.
According to the purchase contract, the company had to deliver 400,000 doses of the anticovid vaccine to the country on March 21 and 800,000 on April 21. Accumulating at that time a delay of 1,200,000 vaccines.
AstraZeneca defaulted for the third month in a row on May 21, 2021 with another 800,000 inoculations. By that date, two of the 10 million contracted doses should have already been delivered.
The calendar that contains the agreement divides the total of vaccines purchased in a monthly delivery format between March 21 and October 21, 2021.
In April, The Dominican Republic received a shipment of 91,200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccinehowever, the delivery occurred through the Covax mechanism, outside the contract signed with the company.
A month later, with no sign of those who were contracted, another 187,000 additional vaccines arrived in the country from the same program.
Government position on delays
When questioned about the delay of the vaccines, the legal consultant of the Executive Branch, Antoliano Peralta, admitted the existence of “delays” in the process.
Days later, the Dominican government announced in a press conference that it did not contemplate suing AstraZeneca for not having delivered the vaccines that were already paid for on the date stipulated in the contracts.
Vice President Raquel Peña attributed the delays in deliveries to “a situation that is happening worldwide,” said that the agreement had been signed and had to be fulfilled by the pharmaceutical company, but did not specify if there would be any consequences for not meeting the deadlines.
He also argued that the country was in constant communication with the pharmaceutical company so that they deliver the vaccines “therefore the Dominican Republic will continue behind us so that we can receive what we have paid for.”
What consequences could AstraZeneca face?
Given these breaches, the question arises whether or not there will be sanctions for AstraZeneca for these faults.
The European pharmaceutical company made sure to shield itself from any claim for delay in the delivery of the doses, from possible adverse effects caused by its vaccine or from its own negligence, placing a clause in the contracts that exempted them from any responsibility if any occurred. of the aforementioned situations.
This clause is contained under the name of “reasonable best efforts”. The preamble defines it as “the activities and degree of effort that a company of a similar size, with a similar infrastructure and comparable resources as AstraZeneca would undertake or use in the development and manufacture of a vaccine, product at the relevant stage of development or commercialization, taking taking into account the urgent need for a vaccine to end a pandemic that is resulting in serious health problems, restrictions on personal freedoms and economic impact, worldwide, but taking into account efficacy and safety.
The section could imply that the pharmaceutical company does not contractually commit to deliver all the vaccines, but rather undertakes to forge all possible efforts for it.
The clause is not exclusive to the contract with the Dominican Republic. They are defense mechanisms implemented by companies that develop anticovid vaccines in their agreements with countries around the world.
Doubts about the vaccine
AstraZeneca was questioned by several international medical groups for adverse reactions such as blood clots that were allegedly caused by the vaccine.
In fact, countries like Italy, Denmark, Norway and Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg They decided to suspend immunization with the vaccine from this pharmaceutical company, until the alleged reactions were scientifically ruled out.
Vice President Raquel Peña stated in March 2021 that the country was “pending the course of the investigations” for the use of these vaccines.
The doses placed
The Dominican government also finalized negotiations in February 2021 with the pharmaceutical company Sinovac Life Sciences Co. Ltd., for the amount of 15,768,000 vaccines.
It should be noted that so far, of that figure and until January 2022, 9,438,604 doses were placed.
A similar scenario played out with the Pfizer vaccine. The country reached an initial agreement with this pharmaceutical company for 7,999,000 vaccines, which was extended to 9,999,990 for which a total cost of US$119,999,880 must be paid.
Until January, 4,352,014 doses of the Pfizer company had been applied in the country.
Vaccines placed according to dose
Until January 18, 2022, some 6,979,904 people applied the first dose. 71.3% of the vaccines placed as the first dose were from Sinovac, while 24% were from Pfizer. The remaining percentage corresponds to the applied doses of AstraZeneca (4.4%) and Sinopharm (0.3%).
According to the Ministry of Public Health, In data provided to the Listin, 5,765,981 citizens received the second dose until that day.
The Sinovac vaccine was also the one that was most applied as a second dose. 77% of citizens were inoculated for the second time with the Chinese pharmaceutical vaccine. With Pfizer, 18.4% of the population was vaccinated, while a small segment was vaccinated with AstraZeneca (4.3%) and Sinopharm (0.3%).
The third dose had only been placed in 1,657,483 citizens up to that date (as of February 28, it rose to 2,215,867).
With the third vaccine, the figures were reversed. 96.7% of people were vaccinated with Pfizer, the rest were vaccinated with Sinovac and Astrazeneca. In this stage of the National Vaccination Plan, the placement of Sinopharm vaccines was not recorded.
The fourth dose of the vaccine received until January 18 to 14,821 people.
Of this group, 97.9% received a Pfizer dose. The rest received Sinovac, none of them received the AstraZeneca or Sinopharm vaccine.
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