Chile donated thousands of Chinese vaccines to Ecuador and Paraguay

Chile has donated 20,000 Chinese CoronaVac vaccines to Ecuador and another similar amount of the same injection to Paraguay to be applied to health workers on the front lines of the coronavirus battle, authorities in the three countries said. .

Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado on Saturday confirmed reports that Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno had advanced a few hours earlier on Twitter.

“Bilateral relations are bearing great fruit! The Chilean government has delivered 20,000 SINOVAC vaccines to Ecuador for health workers. It is a demonstration of solidarity between countries,” Moreno tweeted, while thanking his Chilean counterpart Sebastián Piñera for having shared “the ideal of the fight for immunity in the region.”

The donation is given as part of “a solidarity shipment that is starting to take shape at PROSUR (Forum for the Progress of South America) meetings,” Minister Delgado said. He added that after reviewing the stock of vaccines available in Chile decided to send it so that “Ecuadorian health workers can be in better condition,” he said.

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

As part of the solidarity shipment, Chile also sent drugs to mitigate the effects of intubation, the minister said. 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 the CoronaVac vaccine donated by the Chilean government and which was received at the Silvio Pettirossi airport in Asunción.

“Paraguay has requested Chile’s cooperation to obtain 20,000 doses of the CoronaVac vaccine, produced by the SINOVAC laboratory, for the immunization of 10,000 front-line medical personnel,” the Paraguayan foreign ministry said in a statement. communicated. This information was not immediately confirmed by the Chilean authorities.

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

He stressed that this donation does not affect “nor the security of access to vaccines for the Chilean population”, and thanked Chile for the gesture “which further strengthens the relations of fraternity” between the two countries.

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 oxygen to Peru.

Chile has already vaccinated more than 4 million people (21% of its population) with a first dose and more than half a million (almost 3%) with two doses. The country has received nearly 9 million doses to date, the majority from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

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