Uruguayan Air Force helicopter carrying Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has crashed

Uruguayan Air Force helicopter carrying shipment of Pfizer coronavirus vaccine crashed and caught fire when he went to Rocha department. The secretary of the presidency, Alvaro Delgado, reported on Twitter that the crew members are out of danger.

“Good news that the Air Force troops who crashed into an accident transporting vaccines to Rocha are out of danger. Thanks to the Ministry of Health, the National Emergency System, the Road Police and the Calmette laboratory, the operation was immediately put in place so that the vaccines reached Rocha and Chuy ”, he said. in his story on the social network.

The two crates carried by the helicopter were lost by the fire. The newspaper The observer published that these vaccines were intended to inoculate people over the age of 80 in Rocha.

For its part, Diego paints, Rocha’s health director, reported that the vessel has suffered a mechanical failure, a fact that led to an emergency landing. And confirmed that upon reaching the earth, caught fire and suffered total casualties.

All three crew members sustained minor injuries. One of them is under observation at a local hospital and the other two have been transferred to the military hospital, the newspaper reported. The country.

The Air Force said an investigation had been opened to determine the causes of the crash. The journey of this Bell 212 helicopter was part of the distribution plan for the third shipment of Pfizer vaccine that arrived in Uruguay on Wednesday.

More than 400,000 Uruguayans received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines

Over 400,000 Uruguayans They received the first dose of CoronaVac and Pfizer vaccines against COVID-19 since the start of the vaccination plan planned by the government of Luis Lacalle Pou on March 1.

As can be seen in the monitor developed by the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), 403,207 people – 11.50% of the population – had been vaccinated with vaccines from Chinese and American laboratories, after 23,533 of the 32,638 people who had a reservation for Wednesday underwent the country’s vaccinations.

The web throws this away 291,733 people have already registered this Thursday, although this amount includes those who will be inoculated for the first time and those who, starting next week, will receive the second dose of Sinovac – which was the first vaccine administered -.

Uruguay has acquired 3.8 million doses between Sinovac and Pfizer, of which 1,850,000 are already in the country. In addition, it has registered on the Covax platform, under the aegis of the World Health Organization (WHO), through which some 450,000 doses of AstraZeneca will arrive soon.

Subsequently, the government of Lacalle Pou finalized the acquisition of 1.25 million additional doses from the Chinese laboratory which, according to a press conference on Tuesday, could arrive in May.

The South American country began its vaccination plan on March 1, with the establishment of priority groups to administer the Chinese laboratory vaccine (teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers and workers of the Uruguayan Institute for children and adolescents under 60).

Faced with weaker than expected demand, The Ministry of Health sent doses to border services with Brazil and the prison population, and opened the agenda for people aged 50 to 70.

Last Sunday, it also enabled the agenda to vaccinate the population between 18 and 70 years old during Tourism Week (or Holy Week), an age group that exceeds 2.3 million inhabitants.

However, only 170,000 – including the head of state, who will receive the first dose on Monday 29 – have received an appointment for those days, with the rest of the quotas to be administered later.

On Friday the 12th, inoculation by healthcare workers began and excessive doses of Pfizer were administered to homes for the elderly and those over 80 years of age.

Since the start of the pandemic on March 13, 2020, Uruguay has accumulated 86,007 positives (14,826 people currently suffering from the disease, of which 202 are hospitalized in intensive care) and 827 deaths.

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