The second shipment of the Chinese Coronavac vaccine, with more than 1.5 million doses, arrived in Uruguay on Tuesday to continue the vaccination plan for the population against covid-19.
The shipment of 1,558,000 doses of the vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, transferred on a charter from the Chilean airline Latam from Beijing, arrived at 12.45 local time (15.45 GMT) on Tuesday at Carrasco International Airport, on the outskirts of Montevideo.
On this occasion, the containers included, in addition to the Uruguayan and Chinese flags, a phrase in Spanish: “Do not give up / that life is that / continue the journey / pursue your dreams”.
This poem, erroneously attributed to Mario Benedetti on different internet sites, was recited by former Uruguayan president Tabaré Vázquez (2005-2010 and 2015-2020) in one of his last public acts before passing away in December 2020.
Early in the morning, the secretary of the Uruguayan Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, wrote on Twitter that, in addition to vaccines, 178,000 masks and 1,000 pairs of protective glasses donated to the National Emergency System (Sinae) traveled.
This is the second installment of Sinovac, which completes the 1,750,000 doses purchased by Uruguay from the Chinese laboratory.
What’s more, Uruguay will receive until April 26 about 460,000 doses from the US laboratory Pfizer, whose second installment (50,000) will arrive this Wednesday.
The Coronavac vaccine was initially administered to teachers, police, firefighters, military personnel and workers of the Institute for Children and Adolescents (INAU), but due to the low demand of these groups, the surplus was transferred to the department of Rivera (north), bordering Brazil and the most punished by the pandemic, and the prisons.
For its part, the doses of Pfizer -because of its greater efficiency- were inoculated to healthcare personnel, in an exclusive first appointment for workers in intensive care, out-of-hospital care, emergencies and emergencies, hospital inpatient units and surgical blocks, as well as those who perform coronavirus detection tests.
In addition, the first 2,500 surplus vaccines from this item began to be applied this Tuesday in nursing homes in Montevideo, sources from the Ministry of Public Health (MSP) confirmed to Efe.
The president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, said last February that “there will be no dead time” between the doses already announced and those that complete the purchase made by Uruguay of 3.8 million doses -between Pfizer and Sinovac- and the reserve 1.5 million from the Covax platform, created by the World Health Organization (WHO) for distribution among the least favored countries.
Uruguay is going through a resurgence of the first wave, with several consecutive days above 1,000 infections a day (including a record of 1,587 on Sunday 14).
Since March 13, 2020, when the health emergency was declared, the South American country has registered 72,862 cases (10,536 active, of which 131 are in intensive care) and 717 deaths.
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