People with pre-existing diseases were the first to be immunized in Bolivia with the 500,000 Chinese vaccines against the new coronavirus that arrived in the country the day before.

The Andean nation began a slow vaccination campaign for the population of the Santa Cruz region – one of the hardest hit by the pandemic – in the midst of a strike with protests by health professionals.

“Little by little and gradually we will reach out and reach each Bolivian; We have striven to solve the problem of the pandemic in a structural way,” President Luis Arce told the press at the beginning of the vaccination campaign.

It is planned to “vaccinate 169,667 health personnel and the rest will be vaccinated people with cancer, people suffering from kidney diseases,” among other pathologies, reported the Deputy Minister of Epidemiology, María Renee Castro.

In La Paz, the seat of government, it will begin next week, while in the other seven regions it will be done gradually.

Twenty days ago, intensive care personnel began vaccination with the Russian Sputnik V inoculants. To date, more than 10,000 have been immunized.

A larger batch of the Russian doses is expected to arrive in March. In addition there will be immunizers from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

Pfizer’s vaccines under the COVAX system – promoted by the World Health Organization to ensure equitable access to the vaccine – were delayed and are expected to arrive in late March, Castro reported.

In parallel, health personnel held marches in Santa Cruz and La Paz on the sixth day of the strike that declared in rejection of the health emergency law against COVID-19.

The strike was half done. The Arce government mentioned that only 10% complied with the protest, but the medical leadership assured that there were only emergencies attended and care for other pathologies was suspended.

Doctors at the beginning of the week received the support of several sectors in rejection of the health emergency law recently enacted by Arce, which includes articles that – according to health professionals – violate their right to protest, allow the hiring of doctors foreigners and regulates the prices of private clinics and medicines.

The opposition criticized the lack of a clear vaccination plan. For support, the government has turned to medical students and the military.

So far in the country there have been 245,719 cases of coronavirus and more than 11,547 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Science and Systems Engineering.

Categorized in:

Tagged in: