EFE | COUNTRY Bogota
The National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (Invima), the agency that regulates the sector in Colombia, has authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine against covid-19, of which the Government has already purchased 10 million doses, according to President Iván Duque.
“Another very important step has been taken today to advance the vaccination program against covid-19. Today Invima has already given permission for the use of the Pfizer vaccine in Colombia,” Duque said during the daily television program “Prevention and Action.” which talks about the measures his Government is taking to deal with the pandemic.
The president added that this process took place “in record time”, because “in a very short period of time, more than 22,000 pages were analyzed by the technical team” after the request made by the pharmaceutical company for the emergency use of his vaccine.
“This is a very important step and so we will continue to move forward with AstraZeneca, as well as with Jansen and all the facilities within the Covax strategy,” Duque added.
On December 30, the president reported that the government had reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical company Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, to purchase nine million covid-19 vaccines.
Twelve days earlier, he had announced the conclusion of a negotiation for the purchase of 10 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer and 10 million from AstraZeneca, as well as an agreement through the Covax platform to purchase another 20 million doses.
In this way, Colombia has 49 million vaccines insured for the National Coronavirus Vaccination Plan, which will begin next February.
According to the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, in order to obtain the “immunity of the herd”, it is necessary to vaccinate 70% of the approximately 49 million Colombians, ie approximately 35.7 million people.
Colombia surpassed 1.7 million coronavirus infections on Tuesday, with a record 16,835 new cases, surpassing 16,314 infections on December 31.
According to the Ministry of Health, 1,702,966 people contracted covid-19 in the country and at the moment there are 95,015 active cases, which correspond to 5.55%, while 1,559,010 appear recovered, ie 91.54%.
During the day, 241 deaths were also reported, of which 219 belong to previous days, bringing the number of deaths due to the Columbia pandemic to 44,426.