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LIMA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Nearly half of Peruvians refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19 because they believe its side effects are unknown, a survey said on Saturday, as the country faces a second wave of the pandemic and awaits the first. immunizations.
The survey of the firm Ipsos Peru, published in the newspaper El Comercio, said that 48% of Peruvians do not want to be vaccinated, more than double the percentage (22%) of five months ago, when the country reached the peak of infections and deaths daily by the virus.
The survey specified that 52% say they would not do it because all the side effects it could have on the body are unknown, and 30% say they would not accept the vaccine because it was developed too quickly and would have process errors.
Ipsos Peru’s work was carried out on 1,210 people at an urban and rural level, between January 13 and 15, and has a margin of error of 2.82 percentage points, according to the firm.
Peru registered 7,361 new cases of coronavirus on Friday, the highest number since the end of August, to add 1,056,023 infected with 38,654 deaths.
The Government recently announced agreements with the Chinese Sinopharm for the purchase of 38 million doses of vaccines and with AstraZeneca for 14 million doses.
And this week it reported on the payment of 26 million dollars for the first batch of a million doses of Sinopharm vaccines, the same that would arrive in January or February. For the rest of the inoculations there is no delivery date.
The Sinopharm vaccine, which requires two doses to immunize a person, is 79.34% effective in preventing people from developing the COVID-19 disease, according to provisional data from the firm. China approved this vaccine for public use in late December.
Currently in Peru, trials of the Sinopharm vaccine are being carried out with about 12,000 volunteers, something that according to experts has helped to finalize an agreement with the Chinese laboratory.
Peru also has an agreement with the global Covax alliance, led by the World Health Organization, for some 13.2 million doses of vaccines, although without delivery dates. The government is also in talks with Covaxx, Novax, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Gamaleya laboratories. (Report by Marco Aquino, Edited by Juana Casas)