In Ecuador it is only known that the investment The total for 20 million vaccines against the coronavirus will amount to USD 200 million and will be paid for with loans from three multilaterals. But Ministry of Health has not released any details about the contracts.
In the country, as in the world, the negotiations for the purchase and sale of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca formulas, for example, have taken place after the signing of confidentiality agreements.
This newspaper accessed documents from the Purse that show, for example, that in the doses of Pfizer the country would commit 35% of the total budget destined to immunize to population. So far only 5% has been disbursed. The agreement was signed on December 30.
The Ministry has reported that it has loans with the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), the world Bank and the Development Bank of Latin America-CAF to pay for the purchase of vaccines.
The Government has reached agreements with four suppliers, one is the Chinese manufacturer Sinovac, although it has approached 11.
It is not known how much it costs the country vaccines. According to international data, Pfizer doses are the most expensive.
On Thursday of last week, in the last public appearance of the former minister Juan Carlos Zevallos, it was announced that 2 million Sinovac vaccines: half this month and the rest, in April.
“We negotiate with everyone, under conditions that guarantee safety and efficacy. It is not a resource issue. It’s not that I’m going to buy bread. There is a world war to get vaccines, ”said Zevallos, who from Miami, according to the President, will respond on selection criteria and the list of beneficiaries, as requested by four judges.
The former deputy minister Xavier Solorzano, who also resigned the previous Friday, spoke about the negotiations.
Along this path, he said, not everything has been negative, there were examples of solidarity between countries. Chile promised to collaborate with the donation of sedatives to treat covid. And he considered the option of giving up or sending a dose from the Chinese laboratory as a loan Sinovac.
This occurred after the January 27 meeting between the ministers of Health. Ecuador sent a letter of thanks and a formal request (official letter No. MSP-MSO-2021-0258-O, dated January 29), according to documents reviewed by EL COMERCIO.
Rodolfo Farfán, new head of Health Since his appointment on Tuesday, he has not held press conferences. In a video, he confirmed that Ecuador has received 73,710 doses of Pfizer.
With them, what is required to complete phase zero is barely exceeded. And with the rest (1 628) they will start one, whose goal is to reach two million Ecuadorians: health personnel, teachers and more.
For the experts Fernando Cornejo placeholder image, ex-minister, and Iván Sisa, teacher of wool USFQ, it is necessary to know the conditions agreed in the contracts; they must be public.
Argentina, Cornejo mentioned, did not accept confidentiality clauses from certain pharmaceutical companies that, according to international media, included requests to transfer state assets. “That didn’t happen in Ecuador,” Solórzano said.
Although “the conditions in the contracts are quite favorable to the pharmaceutical companies, they have transferred responsibilities to the governments, which will have to respond to cases of adverse effects.”
For negotiation, the Health Portfolio requested the State Attorney General’s Office “The authorization to agree to international arbitration (alternative solution method against future conflicts) in some contracts for the purchase of vaccines,” the entity responded. “It has been limited, as always, to the analysis of the specific dispute resolution clause of said agreements, since it has no competence to analyze, less to authorize, the other contractual clauses.”
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