The Peruvian government announced on Monday that it would send to the prosecution a list of 487 people, including the former chancellor and former health minister, who took advantage of their privileges and secretly applied a Chinese candidate for the coronavirus vaccine they later bought. for health workers.
“These people who were part of our government have not fulfilled their duty as civil servants,” President Francisco Sagasti told public television, adding that he was “angry” at the attitude of “many public officials who took advantage of their position.” .
The scandal caused frustration among health workers and affected the administration of former President Martín Vizcarra, who was also secretly vaccinated when he was president, along with his wife and brother. Vizcarra ruled until November, the month he was fired for alleged corruption.
Former Chancellor Elizabeth Astete resigned on Sunday after admitting in a letter that she secretly administered the vaccine in January because “I could not afford to get sick.” A few days before, the then Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti, resigned, but hid her immunization.
“I gave in to my insecurity and fears,” Mazzetti admitted in a letter released Monday night.
Mazzetti’s revelation, which was considered almost a local heroine for her fight against the virus, was the most shocking, as last week she assured in a conference with the president that she would be immunized after “all the people who work in are vaccinated”.
“The captain is the last to leave the ship … those of us who are at the head of the institutions must set an example to give us proper time,” Mazzetti said on January 10. The two deputy ministers of her secretariat were also vaccinated and resigned along with her.
The parties in the opposition Congress will hold a plenary session on Tuesday, where they will decide whether to set up a commission of inquiry into the secret vaccination of officials.
Astete managed to buy a million doses in January from the Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company Sinopharm after the Asian country authorized the sale of the vaccine at the end of 2020 after completing three studies with an effectiveness of 79%, according to the company.
Sinopharm conducted studies in the third phase of the experimental vaccine with 12,000 volunteers in the country in September, but sent another 3,200 doses to local researchers. These vaccine candidates were secretly applied in October by then-President Vizcarra, his wife Maribel Díaz and his brother César Vizcarra.
The call to participate in the trial was open to any resident of Peru, except those with chronic diseases such as diabetes or hypertension.
The scandal has sparked outrage in a country marked by inequality, where there is no oxygen for thousands of infected people dying at home, as hospitals have no room for more patients and where 43,703 people have died from COVID-19, most of them without privileges and also officers in the line of fire, including 310 doctors, 125 nurses and over 500 police officers.
“They take advantage of their positions, it is confirmed that the priority was not colleagues in intensive care units who face death 24 hours in a row without eating or going to the bathroom,” Godofredo Talavera, president, told The Associated Press Monday.of the Peruvian Medical Federation.
“We understand why it took so long to buy the vaccines; there was no hurry, they have already been vaccinated “, added Talavera, who has been asking for better salaries for doctors for years.
Former Foreign Minister Astete decided to buy a million vaccines on January 7 – the price of which is secret, due to requests from the Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company – and secretly received the first dose of inoculation on January 22. After Vizcarra’s revelation, she was encouraged to confess and resign.
In a letter posted on Twitter, the Chinese embassy in Lima said it had no information “about the identity of those vaccinated” and rejected terms such as “courtesy vaccines, donations or benefits used by some media and defamation of vaccine cooperation.” Between Peru and China.
Sinopharm was the first pharmaceutical company in Peru to start a phase of three studies in September with a vaccine candidate, in which 12,000 volunteers participated. Only in December, AstraZeneca was the second company to start advanced testing, and in 2021 German CureVac started.
In Peru, there is frustration among medical staff, who have suffered the largest casualties in their history from coronavirus. For months, the authorities did not provide them with adequate protective equipment.
Other countries in the region, such as Brazil and Chile, have already vaccinated more than a million, while only 68,000 health workers have been inoculated in Peru. Recently, groups of doctors and nurses protested in various hospitals in the country because, despite working on the front line against the virus, they were not included in the vaccination list.
“The least we want is our vaccine, because we have not received any sun from the state,” Dr. Herlinda Ruiz told reporters during a protest on Thursday in front of a hospital in the capital. “We are exposed to death and sometimes we don’t even have lunch.”