Tegucigalpa, Honduras
About 5,000 vaccines against covid-19 that Israel will send to Honduras will arrive in the early hours of Thursday, an Armed Forces source reported on Tuesday, although Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said earlier this evening .
Hernández told Radio HRN in Tegucigalpa that he has been negotiating with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for several weeks and that they had their last communication on Saturday.
He added this to Netanyahu indicated that “support is crucial for us, in the sense of having vaccines for people on the front lines, for exposed health personnel” in the fight against the covid-19 pandemic, which from March 2020 began to spread in Honduras.
Israeli support consists of 5,000 doses of modern vaccine that would arrive “tomorrow night,” the president said, which he probably confused with the time he left Israel, which is scheduled for 23:50 local time, local time on Wednesday ( 05:50) GMT), explained the spokesman of the Armed Forces, José Antonio Coello.
According to Coello, the Honduran Air Force (FAH) aircraft, an executive plane for the use of President Hernández, will leave around 08:00 local time in Israel and that, due to refueling stops, the last one from Guatemala, will arrive in Tegucigalpa around 08:00 local time (14:00 GMT), Thursday.
The Honduran presidential plane left for Israel on Sunday along with FAH officials and Ministry of Health personnel to process the country’s assistance to Honduras in the face of the covid-19 pandemic.
MANAGEMENT AND CHILE
Hernández also stressed that steps are being taken to see if it is possible to buy other vaccines from Israel, in addition to Chile, which is probably the Latin American country that has managed the best inoculation of its population against covid-19.
Negotiations with Chile began last week, according to Hernandez.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reported today that his country will send coronavirus vaccines to other countries that, according to local media, would include Honduras and Guatemala, in addition to Hungary and the Czech Republic.
“A limited amount of unused vaccines have accumulated over the past month, so we decided to assist medical teams in the Palestinian National Authority (NAP) and several other countries that have contacted Israel with a symbolic amount of vaccines,” Netanyahu said. he said in a statement.
Presidency Honduras stated in a statement that the batch of 5,000 vaccines in Israel will be “applied to 2,500 people in the health sector who are in the forefront”.
In the case of vaccination, “priority will be given to medical staff (doctors, nurses, technicians) who are in intensive care units and covide rooms across the country, according to a table of priorities established by the technicians of the Extended Program. immunization (PAI)), from the Ministry of Health (SESAL) “, adds the official information.
It also indicates that the Government of Israel will provide advice to Honduras on the application of vaccines.
Honduras has a cumulative 4,024 deaths due to covid-19 and 165,737 infections in 11 months of pandemic.
The Central American country is still waiting for the 20 percent, free, vaccines it needs for its entire population, through the Covax mechanism, promoted by the World Health Organization, which Hernández said in January will begin to arrive in second week of February.
But according to the WHO and PAHO (Pan American Health Organization), it would be by the end of March, while a purchase of 1.4 million vaccines from the Honduran Institute of Social Security (IHSS) will arrive between April and May.