The scandal is growing over the secret vaccination of pleasure …

From Lima

The scandal has grown since the covert vaccination of senior officials, including former President Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020), to protect themselves from the coronavirus, applied before the vaccines reached the country. The resignation of the Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti, was joined by that of the head of external relations, Elizabeth Astete, also splashed by the scandal.

The prosecution has opened an investigation into Vizcarra for having been secretly vaccinated last October while he was president. The government of Francisco Sagasti has formed a commission which is to conduct a summary investigation to deliver this week the list of officials who have benefited from advanced vaccines provided by the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm, with which a contract was then signed to purchase their vaccines.

The scandal erupted with the revelation of Vizcarra’s secret vaccination. We now know that in addition to the vaccines for the twelve thousand Peruvian volunteers who were part of the study of their vaccine which began last September in the country, the Sinopharm laboratory gave those responsible for this study two thousand additional doses, to vaccinate a thousand people with two doses. These vaccines were applied among the professionals who led and worked on this study, but also among senior officials. This vaccination process has been kept secret.

President Sagasti He said he was “outraged” and “furious” by the revelations that officials had been secretly vaccinated when the country still had no vaccines for the population. He described as “unacceptable” Vizcarra’s attitude of being vaccinated in secret and indicated that the agreement with Sinopharm for the delivery of two thousand vaccines outside of those required for the tests carried out in the country was given by the government of Vizcarra and he did not know. The president assured that no official vaccinated in secret will remain in his government.

After the announcement of a summary investigation and the head of the ministerial cabinet, Violeta Bermúdez, asked all ministers to indicate which officials in their sectors had secretly accessed the vaccines put forward by Sinopharm, Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete confessed that she had been one of the beneficiaries of one of the so-called “courtesy vaccines”. With his confession, he submitted his resignation. All other ministers signed affidavits assuring that they had not received the vaccine.

Astete took office last November with the start of the Sagasti government. She received the first dose of the vaccine on January 22, days after the government signed a contract with Sinopharm to purchase a million vaccines, which arrived in the country this month and have already started to be applied to staff. medical, a negotiation in which she had a leading role. President Sagasti and the rest of the ministerial cabinet ensured they did not know the chancellor had been vaccinated. In a statement, the former chancellor admitted that receiving the vaccine in secret was “a big mistake I made”.

The resigning Foreign Minister, a career diplomat, has been replaced by the experienced diplomat Allan Wagner, 79, who already held this post in the first government of Alan García (1985-1990) and under the regime of Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006). ), and he was also Minister of Defense in the second García government (2006-2011.

New health minister Oscar Ugarte revealed that the two deputy health ministers had confessed to him that they and other ministry officials were also secretly vaccinated. and that the then minister Mazzetti was aware of it. The deputy ministers were removed from their posts. This complicates the situation for the former minister, who denied knowing about the issue of secret vaccines when accused of concealing Vizcarra’s vaccination.

Although it has been denied by those responsible for vaccine trials in the country, Vizcarra insists he was vaccinated as part of these tests. The ex-president went from trying to justify keeping the secret of his vaccination, to making excuses for this fact. And he revealed that not only his wife but also his brother received the vaccine. He only said this when it was expected that in the coming days the list of beneficiaries of the “courtesy vaccines” would be known. Members of Congress will present a constitutional charge against Vizcarra and former ministers Mazzetti and Astete, which could disqualify the former president and now a candidate for the Civil Service Congress.

To make matters worse, already dark enough with a second wave of pandemic that has collapsed health services, voices in Congress have started to be heard seeking to impeach President Sagasti to reinstate lawmaker Manuel Merino, who last November he was president less than a week after Congress pulled Vizcarra and put him in power, which sparked massive protests that forced him to resign within days, replaced by Sagasti. During his brief tenure, Merino formed an ultra-conservative government and brutally cracked down on protests. Fujimori lawmaker Martha Chávez, who played an important role in the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), is the standard bearer of these savage voices. If this initiative succeeds, the crisis would worsen with unforeseeable consequences.