The United States recently donated some 650,600 doses of Pfizer vaccines for children between 5 and 11 years old, which will arrive in Nicaragua in September, local authorities reported, who also stressed that the delivery will be made through the COVAX mechanism.
With this donation, the United States would become the second country that has donated the most vaccines against covid to the country, only surpassed by Spain, according to some calculations made by independent doctors. Since the start of the pandemic, Washington has provided some 1.6 million doses delivered to the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health.
The United States ambassador, Kevin Sullivan, stressed that Pfizer’s pediatric vaccines against COVID-19 “will be able to protect the little ones in the house.”
Despite the tensions between Managua and Washington, the Nicaraguan authorities reacted to the donation through Vice President Rosario Murillo.
“We appreciate the announcement by the United States ambassador, Mr. Kevin Sullivan, of a new contribution of Pfizer vaccines for children, which we learned will be arriving in Nicaragua next September,” he said in his address to official media.
The vaccines donated by the United States could restore confidence to parents who have avoided immunizing their children with Cuban doses, and who have preferred to travel to Honduras in search of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
Nicaraguan epidemiologist Leonel Argüello, member of the Multidisciplinary Scientific Committee, highlighted via Skype to the Voice of America that the Pfizer vaccine is the one with the highest efficacy in the world and is the vaccine that has been given the most.
On the other hand, he indicated that local authorities must also complement the vaccines with other preventive measures, to avoid a new outbreak. According to the specialist, “there is a growth in cases, a product of relaxation of prevention measures” for which he called for extreme precautions.
According to calculations by the Government of Nicaragua, 244 people have died in the country since the beginning of the pandemic; although the Citizens Observatory that there have been about 6,000 deaths from the new coronavirus.
“If you do a single intervention – which is vaccination – and you are not preventing people from getting infected with the virus, you are not doing a comprehensive approach, if in Nicaragua the buses continue to move without being disinfected; people do not wash their hands, they do not wear a mask, you do not comply with an elementary measure, vaccination will not be enough, ”he concluded.
According to the authorities of the Ministry of Health, 86% of the 6.6 million inhabitants in Nicaragua have completed their vaccination schedule.
* Donaldo Hernández, VOA correspondent, contributed to this report
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