A president and two ministers who have already been removed from office and the personal doctor of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) are some of the protagonists of “Vacunagate”, the secret vaccination scandal of senior Peruvian officials, has asked any citizen for access them.
Up to 3,200 doses from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm arrived in Peru in August 2020 to immunize sunken staff in the clinical trial This vaccine was to be given to 12,000 volunteers, but it was recently discovered that numerous doses were used to vaccinate strong people and even all their families.
While the coronavirus continued to wreak havoc in Peru, a country that already has more than 100,000 registered deaths, of which only 44,000 are confirmed by covid-19, this group of officials and friends of the researchers had privileged access to this selected batch. of vaccines.
Most were inoculated when they had not even been approved by the Peruvian health authorities, and some involved in direct negotiations for the purchase of vaccines received up to three doses, when two are thought to be sufficient to obtain immunity against covid-19.
Among the most prominent names on the list launched on Tuesday are the following:
1.- MARTÍN VIZCARRA, president. He claims that he asked to volunteer for the trial and ignored that what he received was the vaccine, but the director of the investigation, Germán Málaga, assures that Vizcarra expressly asked for vaccines for him and his wife when he was still president. (2018-2020). In passing, his brother was also vaccinated.
2.- PILAR MAZZETTI, Minister of Health. “The captain is the last to leave the ship. I will wait my turn to be vaccinated,” said Mazzetti last week, who resigned as soon as the scandal was discovered because she had already been vaccinated a month ago. Like her, about 50 Ministry of Health officials did the same.
3.- ELIZABETH ASTETE, Minister of Foreign Affairs. “I could not afford to get sick,” was the justification given by the former foreign minister of Peru, in whose ministry, in charge of negotiating the purchase of vaccines, were vaccinated and at least five other officials, some in the company of wives their.
4.- LUIS SUÁREZ, Deputy Minister of Public Health. Mazzetti’s right hand in the Ministry of Health was one of the most benefited from access to these secret vaccinations, as the list includes direct relatives, such as his wife, children and sister. He resigned even after the scandal was revealed.
5.- ALEJANDRO AGUINAGA, former congressman and personal doctor of the former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). “We are people at risk and we have done investigations to be vaccinated,” Aguinaga said as justification after revealing that both he and his wife were vaccinated with this overdose that remained in the investigation.
6.- CIRO MAGUIÑA, vice dean of the College of Physicians. “I took ivermectin,” Maguiña said last week to explain how he beat covid-19, but this defender of the antiparasitic whose effectiveness against the disease is not scientifically proven did not reveal that he was vaccinated after contracting the coronavirus, which favored Recovery.
7.- GERMÁN MÁLAGA, director of the Sinopharm vaccine clinical trial. The main person in charge of the investigation was tasked with deciding who administered the exclusive batch of vaccines, which he also used to immunize his own daughter.
8.- PATRICIA GARCÍA, former Minister of Health. The head of the health portfolio of the government of former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) was vaccinated because he is one of the leading researchers at the Peruvian University Cayetano Heredia (UPCH), responsible for the clinical study, although not directly related to it.
9.- RECTORS. Other personalities who also benefited from their positions to be vaccinated were the university authorities where the clinical study was performed, as both UPCH and the National University of San Marcos (UNMSM) were vaccinated the rector and vice-rectors.
10.- CECILIA BLUME, media lawyer. “I started … Pepe, the living one,” Blume complained a few days ago before false advertisements on the Internet for the sale of Sinopharm vaccines, the same ones he had already inoculated almost three months ago. His name is one of the most unexpected and reveals his excellent contacts with high places.
11.- NICOLA GIRASOLI, The Apostolic Nuncio. Another of those vaccinated in the category of “consultant” of the clinical study was this Italian priest, permanent envoy of Pope Francis to Peru, who was one of those responsible for organizing the visit of the supreme pontiff in the country in 2018.