It is not known the total number of doses that will be brought to the country and from which laboratory they are.
In late January or mid-February at the latest, the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines will be brought to El Salvador as part of a donation from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Kate O’Brien, WHO’s director of immunization, announced yesterday that vaccine donation is part of the Covid-19 Global Vaccine Access Fund initiative (Covax, for its acronym in English). $ 7 billion will be invested in this program.
The Director of Immunization said in a virtual conversation with the media on Thursday that “we need about $ 7,000 million just to deliver enough vaccines to those (beneficiary) countries by the end of 2021. The initiative has already raised about 6,000 millions of these 7,000 million dollars ”.
Although the total number of vaccines that will come in that first batch is not known, El Salvador is one of the 92 beneficiary countries, due to its difficult economic situation. Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic are some of the most favored states in the region.
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“We will start delivering those vaccines probably at the end of January and if not, certainly in early February and mid-February, so that the countries in Africa and South Asia and other countries in the world of these 92 that have less capacity to pay for vaccines, they will be vaccinated and distributed at the same time as high-income countries, “the WHO official said during a conversation on digital platforms.
The aim of the WHO Covax mechanism is to make vaccines for 20% of the population in each participating country by the end of this year. 92% of the poorest countries will have their acquisition costs covered.
According to O’Brien, the vaccine to be distributed is Pzifer BioNTech, with which the government of El Salvador has not officially expressed an agreement, but with the British-Swedish AstraZeneca. However, the representatives of the Medical College expressed the fact that the Bukele administration already has advanced negotiations with Pfizer BioNTech.
“We have already analyzed the data of the first to complete the review, which is the Pfizer vaccine, and WHO has so effectively issued what is known as an emergency use list, which means that it confirms that we have reviewed the data and that the data meets the standards, that they set the highest standards that have been set for the global use of these vaccines, ”O’Brien said.
So far, in El Salvador, the only vaccine that is already approved by the National Directorate of Medicines for Import and Distribution is AstraZeneca, an opinion made public on December 30.
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This WHO donation will help El Salvador receive millions of doses of the vaccine, but not enough because the government has said it intends to vaccinate 4.5 million people.
At the end of December last year, within the 2021 budget, the Legislative Assembly approved by decree 389 a loan of 50 million dollars to the Inter-American Development Bank, for the purchase of vaccines for COVID-19.
Health Minister Francisco Alabí previously said the government was trying to eliminate 9 million doses in order to vaccinate 4.5 million people in the country. Priority in this vaccination would be for front-line staff (medical professionals, nurses, soldiers, firefighters, etc.), people over the age of 60 and those with chronic diseases (diabetes, hypertension, etc.) who are more sensitive. to obtain COVID-19.
To date, the country reports 48,255 cases of people infected with Covid-19. Of these, 1,398 died and 42,902 recovered, according to official information.