LIMA —
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo applied the vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm against the coronavirus on Friday to encourage the population that distrusts that vaccine.
In the Peruvian vaccination centers there have been citizens who rejected this inoculant due to political controversies and due to the dissemination in the media of questions about its effectiveness.
“I have come to get vaccinated with this vaccine, the Sinopharm, because I have faith not only in this vaccine but also in all vaccines. But it is necessary to make a call. I call on all the Peruvian brothers and sisters to prioritize this right to health… to life, ”Castillo said at a vaccination site in a populous area of Lima.
The wife of the head of state, Lilian Paredes, accompanied him and was also immunized. Both received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine along with other citizens of the area.
“We have to comply not only with one but with both doses, not only to guarantee health and so that the possibility of reaching an ICU bed is less … By complying with the second dose we will have counteracted this third wave ”Added the president.
He warned that, to implement other initiatives, the population must be immunized. “We cannot advance in other spaces if the population does not have a guaranteed vaccine,” Castillo argued.
Sinopharm’s vaccine has been in the midst of a controversy referred to locally as “vaccinagate”. When Peru was negotiating its possible purchase, high authorities in the Andean country irregularly received doses of this drug, including then-president Martín Vizcarra.
Vizcarra was removed by Congress in November 2020 for alleged corruption. He was succeeded by Manuel Merino, who resigned due to protests from the population and then Francisco Sagasti, who was appointed by Parliament, took office. In June Castillo won the elections.
In March, the biologist Ernesto Bustamante, current Peruvian congressman, assured in a media outlet that the Sinopharm vaccine had an “efficacy of between 11% and 33%” and that it would even be like “distilled water.” Bustamante ran for the political party of Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori, and is now a member of its caucus.
Bustamante’s claims were denied by scientists at the Cayetano Heredia University, where a study had been done. However, false information about Sinopharm continued to spread.
The Chinese vaccine was the first to arrive in Peru in early February. The first to receive it regularly were the doctors and health personnel.
So far in Peru there have been 2.1 million cases of coronavirus and more than 196,700 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Science and Systems Engineering.
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