one by one, the 15 payments Argentina made for the Covid vaccines that are still pending

A weak point in the management of the coronavirus has been lack of transparency and the quality of public information offered by the national government. Among these sensitive elements is the performance of the accounts on the five contracts purchase of vaccines signed by Argentina. Not just how much was paid, but when it was paid. Bugle had access to this data.

A high-level source from the national administration offered, case by case, data on what the government paid to laboratories selected by Argentina as suppliers. In total, so far they have been paid $ 205,028,662 out of a total of $ 378,815,368 committed to these contracts.

This indicates that, in total, the 54 percent of vaccines purchased. How much has been received? 12,698,290 doses, It’s the 25 percent of 48,953,842 contracted. Beyond the variable costs between some vaccines and others, on average the account shows that it has been received half of what has been paid so far.

Another data that confirms this survey is that the biggest gap between what is paid and what is received is still concentrated in AstraZeneca. In the rest of the contracts, there was some delays, but they paid as they went. The relationship between payments and acquisitions is in these cases – a dollar more or less – practically up to date.

Now – as has been announced – the laboratory associated with the University of Oxford would begin before the end of May to repay this debt with the delivery of the first batch of nearly four million doses out of a total of 22.4 million whose arrival was scheduled according to a provisional calendar which went from March to July.

Argentina has so far achieved a total of 15 payments for the vaccines you have purchased. Of this total, six payments were made to the Gamaleya Institute for Sputnik V; three at AstraZeneca; one for the Covishield; two for the Sinopharm and three for the Covax Fund.

Gamaleya got paid for the first time $ 3,485,011 in December by 2020. That month, 600,000 doses were due to arrive, but half of it arrived. The cost of each dose is $ 10. During this period, we paid more than what was received, but in the following months, this lag was corrected.

In January, 520,000 doses were received and $ 3,032,540 paid; in February, 917,500 doses and $ 6,217,760 were paid; in March, 2,232,500 doses and $ 15,764,692 were paid; in April, 2,063,290 doses were received and $ 19,712,216 paid; and in May, 1 million doses arrived and $ 12,591,356 was paid.

All this gives a total of 7,033,290 doses received (5,973,290 for the first and 1,060,000 for the second) and the payment up to May 18 was $ 60,803,575. According to official data, at least until the deadline we would have to pay the last million doses, arrived in May. The contract for a total of 20 million doses is worth $ 199 million.

AstraZeneca has been purchased 22,429,842 doses for a total of $ 89,719,368. In December, $ 17,640,590 was paid; in February, $ 35,922,131 and in March, $ 269,480. Argentina has so far not received a single dose for this contract and deliveries are expected to start before the end of the month.

With the Covishield, there weren’t too many laps. In February, the batch of 580 thousand doses and that same month he was paid $ 2,319,880. For the moment, no new batch is expected because India – where it was manufactured – has closed its exports.

The Sinopharm vaccine is the most expensive purchased by Argentina, at $ 20 per dose. In February he was received 1 million doses and 20,104,968 have been paid Dollars; then there was a delay between payments and arrivals: in March 60,191,245 USD and no dose came. The remaining balance of 3 million doses has arrived just April 29.

The Covax Fund received $ 878,911 in March for the 218,000 doses that landed in the country that month, and in April, $ 3,449,160 was paid for an additional 864,000 doses. In May it was already paid 3,448,723 for the rest whose arrival, announced by the government, would be imminent.

The lack of transparency regarding the dissemination of data is not limited only to compliance status vaccine contracts. Since March 2020, the Ministry of Health has allowed, since Carla Vizzotti took office, the Public Vaccination Monitor, whose figures also open more than one question, instead of answering it.

For example, the striking fact that the country has about 821 thousand health professionals and this risk group has already been applied more than two million doses. Or that in the element identified as “other” There are over 16,000 assigned doses because the person uploading the information to the database supposedly doesn’t know what to assign.

PS