President Luis Abinader warned this Monday that the Dominican Republic you will not receive the Astrazeneca vaccines that were contracted by the State, but that were not delivered within the agreed deadlines.
“We cannot now accept that they send us all the vaccines at this time because they have vaccines and they did not send them to us when we needed them,” said the head of state during an interview on the radio program Zol de la Mañana, on Sol 106.5 FM. .
Abinader stressed that as a result of the delays in the delivery of the doses, the agreement with the pharmaceutical company acquires an invalidity characteristic.
“Well, they breached, so when you breach, the contract is not valid either”expressed the government official, while noting that Astrazeneca was delayed and “then later it now wants to deliver all the vaccines in one moment, and vaccines that are going to expire in six months.”
Abinader was emphatic that the country cannot acquire the drug. And he admitted that the signed contract was given in conditions where “we could not discuss better due to the urgency with which we had”.
“We tell him no, that we cannot accept them now”he underlined.
The president assured that he will not allow the national interest to be affected, “taking vaccines that we cannot use later” and that the position has already been communicated to Astrazeneca by the Health Cabinet.
“Either they accept and deliver them to us to the extent that we need them or there will be arbitration or we will go to court,” warned the president.
The Health Cabinet announced the contracting of 10 million vaccines with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca-BioNtech, for an amount of US$40 million, during the year 2020, this being the first major contract signed by the authorities to obtain the biological for the population.
Of the 10 million doses agreed by In the State, only 588,397 doses were applied until January 18, 2022.
The first delays
The contract for the sale of vaccines between the company and the Dominican State indicated that 400,000 doses of the anticovid vaccine should be delivered to the country on March 21 and 800,000 on April 21, 2021. Neither of the two was fulfilled and a delay of 1,200,000 vaccines.
For the third month in a row, in the year 2021, AstraZeneca breached the contract. That third failure was equivalent to another 800,000 inoculations. By that date, two of the 10 million contracted doses should have already been delivered.
The calendar that contains the agreement divides the total of vaccines purchased in a monthly delivery format between March 21 and October 21, 2021.
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