Jaime Durán Barba at the center of the scandal over …

From Quito

Jaime Duran Barba was at the center of what has become in Ecuador the #VacunadosGold. Information that he had been vaccinated was released through investigative media on Friday. The post office, who released a list of people who allegedly accessed the coronavirus vaccine irregularly. Durán Barba appears there, along with his brother.

The former political adviser of Mauricio Macri and candidate’s current campaign advisor Guillermo Lasso He is thus involved in a national scandal which affects personalities close to the current government or spheres of power. This is the case, for example, of the Minister of Defense, Oswaldo Jarrín, of the former President Oswaldo Hurtado, of the former Minister of the Economy, Pablo Better, or of the rector of the University of the Americas, Carlos Larreátegui, who was on the list.

Durán Barba and Hurtado deny having been vaccinated. Lasso, for his part, claimed that neither he, his wife, nor anyone on his work team had been vaccinated on an irregular basis. The list scandal, which is still unclear if it is complete and has been confirmed by various sources, came after weeks of speculation over who had been privileged vaccinated in the country, against the backdrop of successive scandals of people vaccinated coincide with their turn according to the timetable announced by the government.

Simultaneously with the publication of the list, the Minister of Health, Rodolfo Farfán, resigned, who had been in office for less than twenty days. His brief stint was preceded by that of Juan Carlos Zevallos, who, after resigning at the end of February, escaped to Miami and is the subject of an investigation for “alleged crimes against the public administration”.

The Attorney General’s office, as part of the investigations, raided the facilities of the Ministry of Health last Wednesday, as well as the management offices of the Pablo Arturo Suárez hospital, where, it was reported, “reserved lists »Of vaccinated people were seized during phase 0 and 1, ie the first two stages of the vaccination plan.

El escándalo de las vacunas in Ecuador, en el marco de un gobierno ya marcado por el mal manejo ante la pandemia desde los inicios, vienen a agravar un cuadro de crisis a pocas semanas de las elecciones del 11 abril y el cambio de gobierno el 24 of May. It is not yet possible to measure the magnitude of the candidacy of Lasso, struck by the proximity of Durán Barba recently joined his campaign team, which faces Andrés Arauz, candidate of the Citizen Revolution, who won the first round election on February 7.