(CNN Español) – The health crisis that triggered the Covid-19 pandemic in Peru has cost five health ministers their jobs. Former President Martín Vizcarra’s revelation that he volunteered in the clinical trials of the vaccine at the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm in October, and then in phase 3 of the tests, may have been the last straw for Pilar Mazzetti to no longer be the fifth. to be a resident of that portfolio in one year. The sixth Minister of Health, Óscar Ugarte, was sworn in on Saturday.
Vizcarra had made no mention of volunteering. At a press conference on Thursday, he said he was one of 12,000 volunteers who took part in the Sinopharm tests, which began in Peru in September under the coordination of Cayetano Heredia University.
On Saturday night, the university stated on its Twitter account that, in response to an inspection by the National Institute of Health, the regulatory authority for these clinical trials, the lead investigator on the tests confirmed that neither Vizcarra nor his wife, Maribel Díaz Cabello, are making part of the 12,000 volunteers subject to the Sinopharm survey in the country.
The UCH’s response comes after three days of controversy over whether Vizcarra was a volunteer or whether he actually obtained his vaccine from a party reserved for personalities, in addition to receiving his vaccination at the government palace.
At the press conference, the ex-president explained how his participation came about: “I said to the chairman of the council of ministers, ‘Hey, what would you think if I join the volunteers at this stage of rehearsals, in this experimental stage ? The Prime Minister told me, President, I don’t recommend it, it’s very risky. Vizcarra added, “I finally made the bold decision to join the 12,000 volunteers.”
In an interview with Channel N, then-cabinet chairman Walter Martos confirmed on Thursday that during a break in a meeting and in the presence of two or three ministers, Vizcarra approached him and asked what he thought was part of the ordeal. Martos replied that “it wouldn’t be easy because we don’t know its biological effects.
Martos indicated that this was only spoken that time and that he had not known later whether Vizcarra would volunteer for the trials. “Yes, he has made a very personal decision because it is not a topic that has been discussed in the cabinet,” he added.
On Saturday, Martos confirmed before a question from CNN that Vizcarra had never informed him that he had participated in clinical trials or that he had received a “ consultant vaccine. ”
Vizcarra, who said he was vaccinated on October 2, was president of Peru until November 9, when Congress removed him from office. Participants in these studies are not informed at the time of vaccination whether they are receiving the vaccine or placebo; So are the doctors responsible for the investigations, as the UCH authorities reported to CNN at the start of those investigations.
Credit: ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP via Getty Images
Why didn’t Vizcarra announce this decision when he was president? As the ex-president said because as a volunteer he had to keep the matter confidential.
Without mentioning his name or confirming or denying Vizcarra’s participation, Cayetano Heredia University stated in a first tweet on Saturday that all individuals and entities associated with a clinical trial are required to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the data of save test participants.
However, the university pointed out that it can provide this confidential information to the competent authority in exceptional circumstances and with justified reasons. All information related to the participants, the institution said, should be requested by the INS. In its tweet that evening, the UCH confirmed that in fact the INS had intervened.
CNN contacted Dr. Germán Málaga, the lead investigator of these studies and responsible for conducting and planning the clinical studies, to ask if he could confirm whether Vizcarra was a volunteer or whether the vaccine was being used outside of the trials at the government palace. . His answer was, “At the moment I cannot reveal it.”
Vizcarra’s press conference on Thursday and Pilar Mazzetti’s resignation on Friday are triggered by an information released on Willax TV by journalist Beto Ortiz on Wednesday, according to which the former president would not have been a volunteer and the vaccine along with his wife in the government palace.
Ortiz’s report included an interview with investigative journalist Carlos Paredes, author of the book ‘El Perfil del lagarto. X-ray of a cold-blooded politician, ”a profile of Vizcarra to be published in Peru in March.
Paredes told CNN that, according to the information he had obtained, Vizcarra, although the vaccines were available to medical personnel and those participating in the clinical trial, “ had directly asked Germán Málaga to have him and his wife vaccinated, which took place on October 2. would have taken place. 29. There is no indication that the President participated as a volunteer ”. Malaga did not respond to another question from CNN about that episode.
The El Comercio newspaper reported Friday that it had also confirmed from its sources, which it does not identify, that Vizcarra had not been vaccinated as part of the clinical tests in which he could have been given a placebo, but that he had been injected. with a “vaccine for consultants”. Under this condition, El Comercio said, Vizcarra would not have signed the consent form that the volunteers sign.
According to the State Transparency Portal, Dr. Málaga entered the government palace on October 2, the same date the president says he was vaccinated. His name appears as number 44 on the list of visits to the presidential office that day at 9:59 AM.
In an interview with the RPP radio and television network before appointing the new health minister, President Sagasti said of Mazzetti’s resignation and its connection to the controversy over Vizcarra’s vaccination: “This may have been the last straw. defected because was not a specific thing; it has been a constant mistreatment. ”Minutes earlier, Sagasti had said that the minister had made” an extraordinary effort “and that” we have all seen how exhausted, how tired she is and how unfair the treatment she has been given has been not only in the media but also in Congress “.
Regarding the vaccination of Vizcarra, Sagasti said that this was “another problem” and that he believed that “the issues that we should talk about now in our country, aside from Mr. Vizcarra’s vaccination, if he did it right, or he did wrong, if there was an irresponsible one or not, we have a task ahead of us, 700,000 vaccines will arrive tonight ”.
On Thursday, the chairman of the council of ministers, Violeta Bermúdez, and Pilar Mazzetti, who was still the health minister, were called to Congress to report on the Vizcarra vaccination issue.
Mazzetti, who was also Vizcarra’s Health Minister, said in Congress the same Thursday that the authorities usually do not participate in these types of studies: “If Mr. Martín Vizcarra has been given a vaccine or a placebo, he must have been in the clinical trial and generally people with decision-making abilities in a clinical trial should not have been chosen” . According to her, “someone who works at the decision-making level, such as the president of the republic, should refrain from working on a clinical trial and that is evident at the international level”. Walter Martos said Mazzetti was not among the small group of ministers to whom Vizcarra told his idea of getting vaccinated.
Congressman Jim Ali Mamani has filed a constitutional complaint against former President Vizcarra for the alleged crime of irreconcilable negotiations or improper use of the position.