SAN SALVADOR –
At a time when it registers an increase in infections and deaths from COVID-19, El Salvador received 1.5 million doses of the vaccine from the Moderna pharmaceutical company on Thursday donated by the United States government through the COVAX mechanism.
The Minister of Public Health, Francisco Alabi, thanked the shipment, highlighting that it will allow “to continue advancing with the most important strategy to put an end to this disease that continues to cause complications.”
He said that with the new batch of vaccines, El Salvador has so far received just over 8.5 million doses of vaccines from the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Pfizer and Moderna.
“This is the second vaccine donation that the United States has made to El Salvador, reaching a total of three million vaccines for Salvadorans,” said the business manager of the United States embassy, Jean Manes, during a ceremony to receive the batch of vaccines at the international airport and in which the representative of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Geovany Zavaleta, participated.
“We can attest from a technical point of view, from a scientific point of view, that things are being done well in accordance with the PAHO-WHO recommendations” in the country, Zavaleta pointed out.
Since February 17, when the immunization process began, El Salvador has provided the first dose to 2.4 million people and the two to 1.3, of the 6.7 million inhabitants of the country. The government’s goal is to vaccinate 4.5 million.
El Salvador has recently experienced an increase in cases with more than 200 a day and deaths, going from 11 on Tuesday and 10 on Wednesday, according to health authorities. Of the 11 who died on Tuesday – six men and five women between the ages of 30 and over 80 – it was striking that none had been vaccinated.
Alabi confirmed that El Salvador Hospital, which only cares for people affected by COVID, “is handling an average of approximately between 450 and 550 cases,” although it pointed out that this modern sanatorium has the capacity to care for more than 1,000 patients with the virus. .
So far, the Central American nation has reported 84,144 infections and 2,529 deaths.
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