Unveiled the figure that no one knew, 4.5 billion pesos Colombia paid for 88 million vaccines for Covid

One of the best-kept secrets during the pandemic has been the amount President Iván Duque’s government paid pharmaceutical companies to purchase doses of Covid 19 vaccines, which were applied to Colombians in the midst of the pandemic. It was a closely guarded secret, as confidentiality agreements with pharmaceutical companies prevented such amounts from being disclosed.

That secret has just been revealed by the director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), Javier Pava, who has decided to abide by a guardianship order from the Cundinamarca Administrative Court, which forced him to reveal the amount of these contracts.

According to Pava, Colombia paid the pharmaceutical companies Astrazeneca, Gavi Alliance, Janssen, Moderna, Pfizer and Sinovac a total of 4.5 billion pesos, for 88,138,120 doses.

The discriminated figures are as follows: Astrazeneca was paid $221,453,107,200 for 9,984,000 doses; Gavi Alliance was paid $809,209,724,893 for 20,353,200 doses; Janssen was paid $254,303,516,000 for 9 million doses; Moderna was paid $1,806,690,997,684 for 20,800,000 doses, Pfizer was paid $714,518,407,188 for 16,000,920 doses, and Sinovac was paid $4,512,739,265,971 for 88,138,120 doses.

The highest value per dose paid went to Moderna as each vaccine came out at $86,860 pesos, about $22.2 dollars, and the lowest was paid to Astrazeneca, $22,180 per dose, about $6 dollars.

According to Pava, the UNGRD, through the Covid19 Subaccount, has managed resources for an amount of 7.3 billion pesos, which have been distributed as follows: 4.5 billion for the acquisition of vaccines, 1 billion for the payment of the demand of vaccines to IPS, 500 billion for medical equipment to strengthen the installed hospital capacity, and other resources have been invested in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), equipment and elements for the execution of the National Vaccination Plan, strategy strengthening INS, PRASS and strengthening of the collection center infrastructure in the country.

The UNGRD director recalled that the vaccine acquisition agreements contained a confidentiality clause that protected the parties in their development but that several players in the system have requested its publication.

“In strict compliance with the obligations acquired in the agreements signed with the different pharmaceutical companies, in parallel and before compliance with the court order, the UNGRD has notified the suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines that, despite the exhaustion of all mechanisms to part of the national government to ensure the protection and confidentiality of the agreements, we will proceed to comply with the order issued by the competent authority,” said Pava.

The decision to reveal the quantities of vaccines purchased by the national government comes hours after the Cundinamarca Administrative Court decided to open contempt proceedings against Javier Pava, director of the UNGRD for refusing to provide such information.

The decision was taken considering that it had not responded satisfactorily to the rights petition presented by the International Institute for Anti-Corruption Studies (IIEA) which asked for clarity on the actions taken by the then Government in the face of the pandemic and the acquisition of vaccines.

The National Unit responded by taking refuge in the confidentiality agreement that existed between the Government and the pharmaceutical companies with which the respective purchase of doses had been made. This response was not well received by the plaintiff who assured that the refusal of this subject to respond to the request regarding the acquisition procedure was not clear.

Taking into account a decision of the TAR, the Unit that ordered the delivery of the information, the Unit filed an appeal for disagreement, for which it never transmitted the data that had been recorded in the judicial decision, among these were copies the contractual model relating to the acquisition of vaccines; the model, the price, the term and the fulfillment of the same; the delivery address of the vaccines; and indicate whether a health registration granted by the competent authorities already existed at the time of the arrival of the doses of Pfizer and Astrazeneca.

This was considered an outrage by the court, which warned that there was no reason not to do so. “Having examined the file, it is noted that the decisions taken by the Council of State regarding the treatment of the postponement have not invalidated the order adopted with a sentence of 11 May 2021, on access to information raised by the International Instrument for Anti-Corruption Studies, at the likewise, no record or record of compliance with that decision was attached to the file.