A batch of 117,000 Pfizer vaccines, which are part of the Global Access Fund for Vaccines against covid-19 (Covax), arrived in Colombia on Monday, the first country in America to receive doses through this mechanism.
The plane landed today at El Dorado Airport in Bogotá at around 1:10 PM local time, with the doses obtained through Covax, which provided this mechanism sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) only to Ghana, Costa de Ivory, India . , South Korea and Colombia at the moment.
“I celebrate with you the first delivery of vaccines to Colombia, the first country in America to receive vaccines through the Covax mechanism,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus.
The Colombian government signed an agreement with Covax on Oct. 30 to purchase 20 million doses of the vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company to immunize 10 million people.
Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, who received this new quota of vaccines, as he did with the previous one, acknowledged Covax’s work by ensuring that “countries that do not have sufficient resources to access them (vaccines) can do so. in a fair and just manner. “
Tedros recalled that 237 million vaccines will be allocated to 142 countries through this multilateral body created to provide global access to covid-19 vaccines and to ensure that no country is left behind in the inoculation of covid-19 vaccines because of its income level or bargaining power. the reagent against the virus.
“There is still much to be done,” admitted Tedros, to begin vaccination in all countries in line with the target set for the first 100 days of the year.
“We have 40 days left and access to vaccines is not only the right choice, but also the smartest,” said the WHO director.
Slowness in the vaccination process
These 117,000 doses are in addition to several other shipments that Colombia has already received in recent weeks, so already has 217,310 doses from this pharmaceutical company and 192,000 from the Chinese Sinovac.
These are applied to frontline workers who have responded to the pandemic for over 80 years, but the vaccination process, which began on February 20, is still progressing very slowly.
To date, 130,578 doses have been administered in Colombia, representing an average of 7,254 doses per day, and in regions such as Putumayo (south) or Chocó (north Pacific) where only 174 and 144 have been placed, respectively.
The government has set a target of vaccinating 35.2 million people this year, which is equivalent to 70% of the national population.
The coronavirus pandemic has left 2,251,690 infections and 59,766 dead in the country so far.