Hong Kong could throw away millions of vacuum cleaners …

Hong Kong could throw away millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine due to its approaching expiration date and very few people signed up to receive them. According to local authorities, this attitude It is due to “the mistrust of the population”.

The former British colony is one of the few places in the world that has been able to obtain more than enough doses to inoculate its population of 7.5 million, But mistrust of the government, combined with disinformation on social media and few infections, has led to low levels of immunization.

This Tuesday, a member of the government commission warned that the population You “only have a three month window” before the expiration of the first batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

“These vaccines have an expiration date,” he warned over the radio. RTHK Thomas Tsang, former controller of the Center for Health Protection. “They cannot be used after the expiration date and BioNTech’s community vaccination centers will stop functioning in September, as planned,” he added.

In addition, the official acknowledged that “It’s just not right” for Hong Kong to sit on a pile of unused doses while the rest of the world “fights for vaccines.”

Until, only 19% of the city’s population received a dose of any vaccine, while 14% received both doses. Even among health workers, there are doubts about receiving vaccines.

In that sense, the city’s hospital authority revealed this month that only a third of its staff had been vaccinated.

Hong Kong received 3.26 million doses of vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, but only 1.23 million were injected. In addition, he got around two million doses of Sinovac, but this vaccine can be stored for a little longer (one year).

It also pre-ordered 7.5 million doses of AstraZeneca, but canceled that deal earlier in the year, and authorities said they plan to use that money for second-generation vaccines next year. .

Equitable access

Hong Kong authorities’ warning comes as other parts of the world work tirelessly to find vaccines to fight against the strong epidemics of Covid-19.

This week, six leaders of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean called for to the international community equitable access to vaccines and that rich countries share their surpluses.

President Alberto Fernández, Carlos Alvarado, President of Costa Rica; Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from Mexico; Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica; Luis Arce, President of Bolivia; Guillermo Lasso, from Ecuador, and Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay.