:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/FRT56GKJW5AHRGYNVKBSUI44YE.jpg "Haiti will return hundreds of thousands of vaccines donated by the US because they are about to expire")
The authorities of Haiti will return to USA “Hundreds of thousands” of vaccines against coronavirus that are about to expire, while the country continues to register one of the lowest vaccination figures in the world, below 10%, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Following the decision of Haiti, the COVAX mechanism, confirmed this Wednesday that the returned doses will be assigned to other places to “minimize any potential waste,” reports the Bloomberg agency.
According to the Haitian authorities, the return will be in exchange for vaccines that expire until next year, so that the country’s administration – immersed in a political crisis – can establish the best method to immunize citizens, something that for the moment he has not succeeded, picks up “Le Nouvelliste”.
In July, the United States donated half a million doses of Moderna’s vaccine to the Caribbean country through COVAX, of which fewer than 66,800 have been administered, according to the Haitian Ministry of Health. In total, only 20,354 people of the 11.4 million inhabitants have completed their vaccination scheme, while more than 22,700 have been infected and almost 650 have died from the disease.
“A study conducted on the coronavirus reveals that 87 percent of the population does not know of any confirmed case of COVID-19, and much less people who have died as a result of complications related to this infection”said the president of the multisectoral commission for the management of the pandemic, Jean William Pape.
“The Haitian people believe in what they see”, he added, justifying the low vaccination rate registered in the country.