Costa Rica asks Pfizer to suspend vaccine shipments until June

The government of Costa Rica agreed with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer-BioNTech to suspend, until the second semester, the delivery of new vaccines against COVID-19, after making an inventory of the current doses against SARS-CoV-2 that the country has.

According to an official statement, the National Commission for Risk Prevention and Emergency Care (CNE) asked the pharmaceutical company for a reorganization of the vaccine reception strategy for the 2022 contract.

“Thanks to the rhythm and constant arrival of vaccines between donations and purchase contracts during this year, at present the Costa Rican Social Security Fund has sufficient doses to continue with the vaccination strategy at the national level without interruption with the placement of first , second and third doses -with special emphasis on pediatric vaccination for boys and girls from 5 to 12 years old-“, says the statement.

Currently, the country has received 13,027,875 vaccines and applied 10,313,681 doses, so there is a inventory of 2,714,194 doses, which allows to cover all the needs for pediatric and adult vaccines in the coming weeks.

In this way, it was agreed with the representatives of the pharmaceutical company to suspend shipments of doses during the rest of the first semester of 2022, once the next delivery is completed on Tuesday, April 13. Arrivals will resume from June, under the current contract with the company.

The Government affirmed that this agreement between the parties will allow that new vaccines entering the country have a shelf life of 12 months. That is to say, with a validity greater than the current ones, since until now they have had a term of 9 months.

Likewise, the Executive indicated that the measure will allow specialists greater analysis and security in the face of the possibility of a fourth dose, as well as the pediatric vaccine for boys and girls under 5 years of age.

The last shipment of vaccines will arrive in the country on April 12, being delivery number 88 and which will consist of 64,880 doses for people over 12 years of age. This Thursday there will be no entry of vaccines.

To the date, Costa Rica has received 13,027,875 vaccines between purchase contracts and donations, of which 9,294,085 doses per purchase contract with the companies Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca and the COVAX multilateral mechanism; In addition, 3,733,790 doses have been donated by the governments of Spain, the United States, Canada, France, the Dominican Republic and Austria.

So far in 2022, the country has received 4,736,130 doses, of these 1,048,600 vaccines are pediatric and 3,687,530 are for people over 12 years of age.

Also, the CCSS as of April 4, a total of 10,313,681 doses had been applied against SARS-CoV-2, of these 4,358,705 correspond to first doses, 4,008,446 to second and 1,946,530 to third.

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