Panama’s Health Minister Luis Francisco Sucre this Sunday confirmed the request to Russia for three million doses of its vaccine against covid-19 Sputnik V and clarified that they are waiting for it to be “certified”.
The Sputnik V vaccine has to be approved “by the regulatory authorities, but as it was done with the other drug companies, the process of talks will be verified in parallel, because when the authorizations are obtained and Panama has completed the negotiations,” the Department of Defense Public health (Minsa) in a statement.
Sucre explained that the “sole intent” of the petition is “to strengthen the covid-19 vaccination process in Panama,” as the Executive plans to vaccinate 80% of the population.
On Thursday, the government of Panama asked Russia for three million doses of its Sputnik V vaccine to receive them in March, according to official sources confirmed to EFE.
This request was made through a letter addressed by Panamanian Health Minister Luis Francisco Sucre to the director of the official Russian Investment Fund funding the above-mentioned vaccine, Kirill Dmitriev, a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the document, the Panamanian minister states that Panama’s geographic location makes this country “one of the most important centers of connectivity by air, land and sea in our region and is exposed to a much greater risk than other countries” of causing of the pandemic, admitting that the country “suffers from a high degree of contamination.”
Until this Sunday, the government had not ruled on this request.
In addition to doses of Sputnik V, Panama has allocated $ 56 million to purchase 5.5 million vaccines: 3 million from Pfizer; 1,092,000 from AstraZeneca; According to official information, 300,000 from Johnson and Johnson and 1,121,000 from the WHO Covax Mechanism.
Panama, the second country in America with the highest incidence of covid after the US, began vaccinating Jan. 20 and has already administered 12,441 doses to health professionals working on the front lines against covid-19 of the 12,840 Pfizer / BioNtech vaccines used the first shipment arrived.
The second batch of vaccines, according to what was announced by the government, should arrive in mid-February and 450,000 doses are expected to arrive in the first quarter of this year.
The vaccination campaign consists of four phases and gives priority to health workers and the elderly.
PANAMA GETS READY TO PROCEED THE ECONOMIC REOPENATION
The Ministry of Health has asked the population to “be unaware” of the new phase of economic reopening, which begins next Monday.
In the provinces of Panama, where the capital, the adjacent Panama East and Herrera, are located in the center of the country, the sex restriction on buying is expected to be lifted – a measure strongly criticized by several unions – restaurants are going personally open and access to beaches, rivers and spas is permitted.
The other stages of the reopening process will depend on epidemiological behavior and will be announced “in due course,” de Minsa added.
This new reopening comes after authorities shut down “non-essential trade” in December and reintroduced strict mobility measures to reduce an aggressive spike in infections.
As a result of these restrictions, pandemic indicators have declined in stages over the past four weeks, opening some economic activity this week, according to the government.
“After reaching a positivity of 29.6%, we managed to drop to 10.3%, showing that the measures taken by the government have been effective,” said Sucre.
COVID FIGURES
Panamanian authorities reported 627 new positive cases from covid-19 and 25 deaths this Sunday, adding up to 327,091 cases and 5,480 deaths.
The Minsa’s epidemiological report states that 23 new deaths have been recorded in the past 24 hours and 2 have been updated from previous dates, while the country maintains a death rate of 1.68%, one of the lowest in America.
27,285 people are reported in home isolation, of whom 26,824 at home and 461 in hotels, while the number of hospital admissions amounts to 2,024, of which 1,815 in the ward and 209 in the ICU.
There are 29,309 recovered patients.
To date, 6,316 tests have been applied, a figure lower than the 10,000 daily tests the authorities had proposed as a target, for a positivity rate of 9.9%. Since the first case was discovered, Panama completed a total of 1,739,966 investigations on March 9.