Minister Francisco Alabí said there are eight cold rooms at the National Biological Center that will be added to the refrigerators in each antidote application center, which will allow for the best development of all vaccination logistics.
El Salvador received the first batch of vaccines against Covid-19 from India’s pharmaceutical AstraZeneca on Wednesday. In the morning, the shipment arrived at Óscar Arnulfo Romero airport, where a government delegation was in charge of the transfer.
From the early hours of the morning, several trucks equipped with a refrigeration system to maintain the drug’s cold chain waited near the air terminal runway to receive the shipment of 20,000 vaccines sent to the Department’s National Center for Biologicals of Public Health (CENABI). in Soyapango.
The Ministry of Health has taken the shipment of COVID-19 vaccines to the National Center for Biologicals in Soyapango, from where it will be distributed to the country’s vaccination centers
“We have to thank the Serum Institute for providing us with this vaccine, the Government of India, the Prime Minister and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca,” said Minister Francisco Alabí. The official also reiterated that the purchase of this batch of vaccines was made “through government purchases”.
El Salvador received the first batch of vaccines from India’s pharmaceutical AstraZeneca on Wednesday, which will be applied to front-line workers. EDH Video / Jonathan Tobías
Minister Francisco Alabí shows a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the batch of 20,000 received in the country on Wednesday. Photo Jessica Orellana PHOTO GALLERY: Photos show the arrival of the first vaccines against COVID-19 in El Salvador
He pointed out that starting this afternoon, a vaccination plan will begin for medical personnel working on the front lines in the fight against the pandemic, which, according to official data, infected 58,023 Salvadorans across the country and left 1,767 deaths by February 17.
“This day is historic for the country,” said Alabí, without providing details on the logistics and application of vaccines for health workers, which are more than 50,000 employees in the public and private sectors.
Later at a press conference at the National Biological Center, he pointed out that in CENABI there are eight cooling chambers that are being added to the refrigerators in each vaccination center to develop all of the vaccination logistics.
“We have the largest cold chain in Latin America per capita, which is why we have the capacity to store under ultra-low freezing and low freezing modes,” he added.
Health authorities assure there is a capacity to store up to 16 million doses of the coronavirus antidote.
El Salvador joins the Latin American countries that are already vaccinating their populations against the coronavirus, including Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
Until 11:30 am Wednesday, February 17, authorities did not report how many vaccines were purchased. Photo EDH / Lissette Monterrosa
On Tuesday, President Bukele explained that this shipment is not the vaccines that will be received from the World Health Organization (WHO) COVAX program, as “they will arrive in the first week of March.”
SEE: El Salvador is one of the first countries to receive the COVID-19 vaccine through the COVAX mechanism, what does this mean?
Bukele announced on November 24, 2020 that the Salvadoran government and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have reached an agreement to supply 2 million doses of the vaccine against Covid-19.
The Ministry of Health aims to vaccinate 4.5 million Salvadorans. The second group within the vaccination plan are the elderly and people with chronic diseases.
4.2% is said to represent about 72% of the Salvadoran population, according to the latest Multiple Purpose Homes survey, which estimates that El Salvador is inhabited by 6.7 million people.
The government reported via a Twitter account that the vaccines had been purchased, without providing details of the costs. Photo / Capres
You could read: the government is already placing vaccination labels for COVID-19
Despite government records of Covid-19 cases in the country, city hall numbers indicate that at least 1,879 died of the virus, while 3,727 died suspected of covid-19 and 1,308 burials diagnosed with atypical pneumonia . in 257 municipalities of the 262 that make up the country up to the beginning of November 2020.