In the first quarter of 2021, Ecuador expects to receive the first batch. It is estimated to immunize 60% of the population.
The Minister of Health, Juan Carlos Zevallos, announced that details are being finalized for the importation of 16 million doses of vaccines to combat Covid-19 and that they will be from three international companies.
Zevallos said that the Government is in dialogue with AztraZeneca and Oxford, Germany’s Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna to import the vaccines, whose first shipment will be 50,000 that would arrive in the country during the first quarter of 2021.
The official said that he wants to immunize 60% of the population free of charge and he stated that each vaccine has two doses.
He said that Ecuador is part of the Covax initiative, made up of 180 countries and that it is led by the World Health Organization (WHO), thus ensuring rapprochement with international firms with which letters of intent have been signed and the money needed to import the doses has been delivered.
He argued that as soon as the vaccines arrive in the country, they will work with a coalition made up of universities, civil society, the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS) and private companies, in order to collaborate in the distribution.
He mentioned that the approximate cost of the total of vaccines is USD 200 million and said that there is the possibility of expanding imports to six supplier companies.
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