Chile donated thousands of COVID-19 vaccines to Ecuador and Paraguay for medical staff

Chile donated 40,000 Chinese CoronaVac vaccines to Ecuador Yes Paraguay so that they are applied to healthcare workers on the front lines of the battle against the coronavirus.

Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado on Saturday confirmed reports that Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno had advanced hours earlier on Twitter. “Bilateral relations are bearing great fruit! The government of Chile has delivered 20,000 vaccines from (the Chinese pharmaceutical company) SINOVAC to Ecuador for health workers. It is a manifestation of solidarity between countriesMoreno tweeted, while thanking his Chilean counterpart Sebastián Piñera for sharing “the ideal of fighting for immunity in the region.

The donation is made within the framework of “a sending of solidarity which begins to take shape in the meetings of PROSUR (Forum for the Progress of South America)”Said Minister Delgado. Added that After examining the stock of vaccines available in Chile, an expedition was decided so that “Ecuadorian health workers could be in better conditions”, he pointed out.

Added that the shipment “does not affect the stock or the vaccination schedule in Chile in any way.”

As part of the solidarity dispatch, Chile sent also medicines to lessen the effects of intubationexplained the minister. He pointed out that so far this procedure has been done without any medication, without any palliative element, “people were tied up while they were intubated and the truth is that these are quite dramatic realities,” he said. he adds.

A few hours later, the Paraguayan Foreign Ministry announced the arrival of a batch of 20,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccine donated by the Chilean government and that he was received at Silvio Pettirossi Airport in Asunción.

“Paraguay requested Chile’s cooperation to obtain 20,000 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine, prepared by the SINOVAC laboratory, for immunization of 10,000 front-line medical staffThe Paraguayan Foreign Ministry said in a statement. This information was not immediately confirmed by the Chilean authorities.

The Chilean government “in view of the deep bonds of friendship that unite the two peoples and their presidents” has accepted this request within the framework of the PROSUR talks and “in the sense of the search for equitable and universal access to vaccines considered as a public good”Said the Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He stressed that this donation does not affect “neither the security of access to vaccines for the Chilean population”, and thanked Chile for the gesture “which further strengthens the fraternal relationship” between the two countries. In the past few hours, Paraguay has experienced strong political tension due to protests against the handling of the pandemic.

The last PROSUR meeting was held at the end of February and the Presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay and Peru attended via telematics.

Chile encouraged the idea of ​​reaching a global treaty for the region against the pandemic at the meeting. The South American country has indicated its intention to help other countries which may need help in certain aspects. In addition, He recently collaborated in the transport of vaccines to Uruguay and donated tons of oxygen to Peru.

Chile has vaccinated more than 4 million people with a first dose (21% of its population) and with two doses over half a million (almost 3%). The country has received nearly 9 million doses to date, the majority from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. “This fast and orderly program contrasts with the rest of Latin America”, recently indicated The Economist.

The government of Sebastián Piñera obtained the purchase of more than 30 million vaccines: 10 million with the American company Pfizer; 10 million more with the Chinese Sinovac and the rest with AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and the Covax platform, promoted by the World Health Organization.

In the country, there are 850,483 positive infections and 21,008 deaths since the start of the pandemic on March 3, 2020.

For its part, Ecuador provided vaccines with Pfizer, AstraZeneca and the COVAX initiative, led by WHO. Last month, he signed an agreement with the Sinovac laboratory to acquire 2 million doses that will be delivered between March and April of this year. The government announced that 1.3 million doses of the vaccine would arrive in March from Pfizer, Sinovac and the COVAX initiative. The pharmaceutical product AstraZeneca will join the vaccine supply schedule in May.

In the case of Paraguay, the vaccination program began at the end of February with 4,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, the first to reach the country out of a total volume of one million that the government has negotiated with the Russian Fund for Direct Investments.

(With information from AP, Reuters and AFP)

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