Chile buys more vaccines and will start vaccinating people between 35 and 45 years old

SANTIAGO, Chile – The government of Chile has acquired three million more doses of Chinese Sinovac vaccine and will start vaccinating people aged 35 to 45 over the next two weeks, ahead of the constituent elections, the president reported on Saturday Sebastian piñera.

The president said that half of that batch will arrive on Sunday, which will total 17.2 million doses of the drug received by the country in the first half of 2021.

In addition to these 17.2 million, nearly 2.6 million doses of Pfizer / BioNTech and 158,000 of AstraZeneca have already been received, via the international Covax mechanism.

The government will advance the vaccination schedule and next week all people between 40 and 45 years old will be able to be vaccinated, and between 35 and 39 years old the following week, before the elections of the Constituent Convention to draft a new Constitution, of mayors, councilors and governors, scheduled for May 15 and 16.

Authorities expect seven million people to receive two doses of the vaccine by that date. Currently, according to the latest figures provided by the authorities, nearly 8.1 million people have been vaccinated with one dose (52.9% of the vaccinated population) and nearly 6.7 with two doses (44% of the population). ).

This places Chile as one of the countries with the highest percentage of fully vaccinated population in the world.

The country is still going through a critical moment of the pandemic with a good part of its population in quarantine and hospitals saturated at 94%. Chile has so far recorded more than 1.2 million cases and nearly 26,500 deaths from Covid-19.

AP Agency

THE NATION