Panama’s Health Minister Luis Francisco Sucre on Sunday confirmed Russia’s request for three million doses of its covid-19 Sputnik V vaccine and said it expects it to be “certified.”
The Sputnik V vaccine must be approved “by regulators, but as has been done with other pharmaceutical companies, the process of talks is verified in parallel, for the time of obtaining permits and Panama has completed negotiations” the Ministry of Health (Minsa) said in a statement.
Sucre explained that the “only intention” of the petition is “to strengthen the vaccination process against covid-19 in Panama”, because the Executive intends to vaccinate 80% of the population.
On Thursday, the Panama government asked Russia for three million doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to receive next March, according to official sources confirmed to EFE.
The request was made by a letter from Panama’s health minister, Luis Francisco Sucre, to the director of the official Russian investment fund that finances the aforementioned vaccine, Kirill Dmitriev, a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the document, the Panamanian minister details that Panama’s geographical position makes this country “one of the most important centers of air, land and maritime connectivity in our region and has been exposed to a much higher risk than other countries” of causing the pandemic. and admits that the country “suffers from a high rate of contagion.”
Until this Sunday, the Government had not ruled on this request.
In addition to doses of Sputnik V, Panama has allocated $ 56 million to purchase 5.5 million vaccines: $ 3 million from Pfizer; 1,092,000 from AstraZeneca; 300,000 from Johnson and Johnson and 1,121,000 from the WHO Covax mechanism, according to official information.
Panama, the second highest incidence of covid in America after the United States, began vaccinating on Jan. 20 and has already given 12,441 doses to medical staff working on the first line against covid-19 of 12,840 Pfizer / BioNtech vaccines that arrived in the first transport.
The second batch of vaccines, as announced by the government, is expected to arrive in mid-February, and 450,000 doses are expected to arrive in the first quarter of this year.
The immunization campaign includes four phases and gives priority to medical staff and the elderly.
PANAMA IS PREPARING FOR THE CONTINUATION OF ECONOMIC OPENING
The Ministry of Health asked the population “not to lower its guard” in the new stage of economic reopening, which begins next Monday.
It is expected that in the provinces of Panama, where the capital is located, adjacent to East Panama and Herrera, in the center of the country, the gender restriction to buy will be lifted – a measure strongly criticized by several unions -, restaurants will open staff and access at beaches, rivers and spas is allowed.
The other phases of the reopening process will depend on the epidemiological behavior and will be announced “in due time”, Minsa added.
This new reopening comes after authorities closed “non-essential trade” in December and reintroduced severe mobility measures to mitigate an aggressive rise in infections.
As a result of these restrictions, according to the Government, the indicators of the pandemic have decreased in stages in the last four weeks, which allowed the opening of some economic activities this week.
“After reaching 29.6% positivity, we managed to fall to 10.3%, which shows that the measures taken by the government were effective,” Sucre said.
THE FIGURES OF THE COVID
Panamanian authorities reported 627 new positive cases due to covid-19 and 25 deaths on Sunday, which rose to 327,091 cases and 5,480 deaths.
Minsa’s epidemiological report details that 23 new deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours and 2 of the previous data are updated, while the country maintains a fatality rate of 1.68%, one of the lowest in America.
In isolation at home, 27,285 people are reported, of which 26,824 are at home and 461 in hotels, while hospitalizations amount to 2,024, of which 1,815 are in the ward and 209 in the ICU.
There are 29,309 patients recovered.
To date, 6,316 tests have been applied, a figure below the 10,000 daily tests that the authorities have proposed as a target, for a positive percentage of 9.9%. Since the first case was detected on March 9, Panama has applied for a total of 1,739,966 examinations.