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Santo Domingo (AFP) – More than 350,000 doses of vaccines against covid-19, mainly from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, will be discarded in the Dominican Republic due to their expiration date, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Wednesday.
“354,240 expired doses have been reported,” Deputy Minister of Collective Health, Eladio Pérez, told a press conference.
The Dominican Republic has invested almost 183 million dollars in 10 million doses from AstraZeneca, 9.9 million from Pfizer and 2.1 million from various laboratories acquired through the Covax system. He bought another 15.7 million from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac for an amount that until now is not public.
Authorities have applied 15.2 million doses so far, according to official figures. Some 5.8 million people (56% of the population) have received two doses, while 2.2 million (21%) were inoculated with the booster since June.
Pérez commented that the Caribbean country has more than 9 million doses available, most of which expire in 2023.
“The doors are open” for donations to other countries of vaccines about to expire, Pérez said. “When a vaccine can no longer be used, it is incinerated or thrown away.”
Last week, President Luis Abinader lifted all the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, calling the government’s vaccination plan a “success,” even though the initial goal was to vaccinate 70% of Dominicans.
The Dominican Republic registers 573,036 cases of covid-19, with 4,363 deaths, according to the official count.
© 2022 AFP
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