Government of Ecuador negotiated 20 million vaccines but only 3.9% have arrived in the country

Of the 20 million vaccines negotiated by the Government, barely 799,330 doses have reached the country, representing 3.9%.

The first 8,000 (Pfizer) arrived on January 20, 300,000 arrived yesterday (Sinovac) and another 700,000 (Sinovac) are expected for Saturday.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer-BioNtech, AstraZeneca (through the Covax Facility alliance) and Sinovac pledged their shipments.

The shipment of the latter Chinese pharmaceutical company is the largest that the country has received and with that the Government plans to accelerate the inoculation process.

President Lenín Moreno announced that the expectation is to reach 50,000 immunized people per day, since until Monday it was known that 32,000 were reached.

According to the schedule published on the Plan Vacunarse website, it was expected that one million doses would be in Ecuador in March and another million in April, from Sinovac. But this was only in expectation, since the date was changed again and it is expected that one million more of these formulas will arrive in the country in the first days of May.

At the moment, phase one of the immunization strategy continues, in which vulnerable groups must be cared for, such as the elderly, health workers – not vaccinated in phase zero – firefighters, teachers, police officers and the military.

The objective is to immunize two million people until May 20, four days after the end of the administration of this Government. Although more doses would have been negotiated so that 10 million inhabitants are vaccinated until November. Until the weekend, 301 069 formulas were placed.

For epidemiologist Daniel Simancas, the country is still far from achieving herd immunity, due to the lack of vaccines.

Another problem that the expert envisions is disorganization at the time of inoculation, which is why complaints are unleashed from people who must wait a long time to access the dose.