The first vaccines sent to Colombia via the Covax mechanism will arrive on March 1

The President of the Republic, Iván Duque, confirmed, in the afternoon of this Friday, February 26, that Colombia will be the first country in the Latin American region to receive vaccines from the international Covax mechanism. According to the president, 117,000 organic products will arrive in the country next Monday, March 1st.

“We are the first country in America to receive these Covax vaccines and the second country in the world, because we are preparing on time, because we have also decided to conclude this multilateral agreement and to ensure the sustainability of the vaccine supply ”, announced the president during the summit of governors currently being held in Puerto Gaitán, Meta.

Organic products sent to the country They will come from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which has already sent 100,000 additional doses nationwide acquired through bilateral agreements independent of the international mechanism founded by the World Health Organization for equitable access to alternatives against covid-19.

According to statements gathered by the newspaper El Tiempo, Duque took advantage of the announcement to refer to those who made comments against the said international mechanism, stating that “a those who said Covax doesn’t work, it’s not real and it’s an illusion, the answers are the facts, because here we act with facts and with the well-being of Colombians in mind ”.

It goes without saying that Colombia is expected to receive, throughout 2021, a total of 20 million doses of this mechanism. Among these, ten million will be manufactured by the American Pfizer, in alliance with the German firm BioNTech; while the The remaining ten million will correspond to the alternative developed by the British AstraZeneca, which had the support of the University of Oxford.

Ghana, an African country, has already benefited from the same system that on February 24, he received a total of 600,000 doses vaccine from this second laboratory. Such a quantity reached the capital, Accra.

Once this delivery was completed, the director of Unicef ​​for West and Central Africa, Marie Pierre-Poirier, noted that “it is a turning point. We estimate that we will deliver 1.3 billion doses in 2021 with the COVAX association, this will only cover 20% of the most vulnerable population of any country on the planet, there is still a lot to do. But we started the first phase today ”.

The confirmation of the arrival of the first Covax vaccines in Colombia was celebrated by the Chief of Staff of the Presidency of the Republic, María Paula Correa, who wrote on her Twitter account that “Colombia will be the first country in Latin America and the second in the world to receive vaccines against #COVID ー 19. On Monday March 1, we will receive 117,000 doses of vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Mass vaccination continues! “

Besides Colombia, the mechanism is also expected to reach Côte d’Ivoire, Bolivia, El Salvador and Peru in the coming days. The program was initiated by the Coalition to Promote Innovations for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI), the Gavi Alliance for Vaccines (Gavi) and the World Health Organization (WHO), with the goal that all participating countries can have equitable access to covid-19 vaccines throughout 2021.

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