CORONAVIRUS PANAMA
Panama, Mar 21 (EFE) .- The health authorities of Panama reported this Sunday 326 new cases of covid-19 and only two deaths, which brought confirmed infections to 350,991 and 6,044 deaths from the disease in more than a year of pandemic.
There are 717 hospitalized patients, 99 in intensive care units (ICU) and 618 in the general ward, while 4,446 are isolated at home and 219 in hotel-hospitals, detailed the daily report of the Ministry of Health (Minsa).
In the last day, 5,029 tests were applied to detect the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which yielded a positivity of 6.4%, said the Minsa, which specified that 339,565 recovered patients were counted this Sunday in Panama.
Regarding the immunization process that began on January 20, the authorities reported that until this Sunday 309,660 doses of the anticovid vaccine produced by Pfizer, currently the only supplier, have been applied.
The Government of Panama has allocated 56 million dollars for the purchase of 3 million vaccines from Pfizer, 1,092,000 from AstraZeneca, 300,000 from Johnson and Johnson, and 1,112,410 from the Covax Mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO), and negotiates with Russia the acquisition of between 2 and 2.5 million doses of Sputnik V.
Pfizer has already delivered 350,860 servings of the drug, initially with a delay that forced the vaccination process to be suspended, while the first batches of AstraZeneca are expected to arrive in the country next April.
The authorities of Panama, a country of 4.2 million inhabitants, have set a goal to vaccinate 84% of the population this year through a four-phase program, the first two already underway and aimed at priority groups.
Panama is the country that accumulates the most cases of the disease in Central America, and saw its economy collapse by 17.9% in 2020 due to the pandemic. The authorities have focused their recovery strategy on immunizing the population.
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