The Colombian government, following other countries in the region, announced on Friday that it has secured the purchase of a total of 40 million doses of vaccines to begin immunizing its population in 2021. “I am pleased to tell Colombians today that we have concluded bilateral negotiations with two pharmaceutical companies that are currently developing very important “, said the president Iván Duque in Prevention and action, its daily television program dedicated to the coronavirus pandemic, in reference to the agreements with Pfizer and AstraZeneca to purchase 10 million doses from each of these companies. Bogota already had another 20 million guaranteed doses as part of the Covax platform.
The president has assured that the vaccines will arrive early next year, and mass vaccination will begin in February. The Andean country exceeded 40,000 covid-19 deaths on Friday. With more than 13,000 new cases detected in the last 24 hours, there are signs of a worsening pandemic before the end-of-year holidays. Colombia has about 1.5 million confirmed cases, of which 83,971 correspond to active cases and 1,354,000 to recovered patients. Cities such as Medellín, Cali and Cúcuta – the capitals of the departments of Antioquia, Valle del Cauca and Norte de Santander – have once again raised alarms from health authorities, with worrying figures for the availability of intensive care units (ICUs) of 21, 20 and 7% respectively. .
The Columbia Ministry of Health, a country of about 50 million people, has chosen to combine a multilateral strategy with several bilateral strategies, making it the target of criticism for delaying the announcement of completed acquisitions. Authorities hid behind the confidentiality agreements signed with the six pharmaceutical companies with which they were in negotiations. A press release from the Ministry of Finance has already revealed that the government has about $ 123 million available to purchase the ten million doses of vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNtech – which serve to immunize 5 million people, for the need for a double dose.
Through the Global Access Fund for Covid-19 Vaccines (Covax), Colombia already had vaccines provided for ten million people – requiring 20 million doses – one-fifth of its population. Although that package was planned for the second half of 2021, the government also assured on Friday that it would arrive in the first quarter of the year. Together with the agreements with Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the country is now considering vaccinating 20 million people, over the goal it had declared to vaccinate in 2021 the nearly 15 million who prioritized the first phase of its vaccination plan: workers in the field health, those over 60 and people with comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, among others.
Coronavirus information
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