Panama, December 13. The Panamanian Ministry of Health (MINSA) reported the arrival on Tuesday of a new batch of 72,000 monovalent covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer to expand coverage of vaccination days across the country.
The health agency stressed that it is a minimum requirement to have two doses of the monovalent vaccine in order to apply the bivalent vaccine, the first batch of doses of which should arrive in the country in the coming weeks.
“We urge that before December 31, they have the opportunity to apply the two doses of the monovalent vaccine, so they can safely apply the bivalent vaccine next year that has greater coverage against all variants of Ómicron and others,” Itzel said. . de Hewitt, coordinator of the Minsa Expanded Immunization Program (PAI).
Minsa reported earlier this month that it approved emergency use of Pfizer’s bivalent vaccine to apply to people over the age of 12 who have at least two doses of covid-19.
The emergency use of the “Covid-19 Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine”, in its new presentation of bivalent active immunization for the prevention of covid-19, has been authorized by the National Directorate of Pharmacy and Medicines of the Ministry of Health.
The new bivalent presentation offers better protection against circulating variants (original and omicron BA.4/BA.5, XBB, BQ1, BQ1.1), says a statement from the health agency.
The bivalent vaccine targets both the original strain of the coronavirus and the omicron variant that emerged in late 2021.
Since January 2021 in Panama, the vaccination process against covid-19 has been maintained without interruption, in the first, second and third booster doses which are applied free of charge in all health centers in Minsa.
