The president of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, has requested this Wednesday the resignation of the Minister of Health, Mauro Falconí, given the chaos in the vaccination process against coronavirus covid-19 registered in the capital of the country, and that portfolio has been entrusted to the doctor Camilo Salinas.

Own Moreno communicated in a Twitter message that he had asked Falconí that he resigned after the problems registered in the vaccination of the elderly in Quito.

“Our seniors deserve the utmost respect. What happened today has no justification ”, said the president when communicating his decision without giving more details.

According to complaints from citizens on social networks, many elderly people who made long lines outside various vaccination units against covid-19, had to wait hours to receive their doses and many were not treated.

“He will be replaced by Dr. Camilo Salinas”, remarked the president, who this Wednesday received at the Quito airport a first batch with 300,000 vaccines from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

Also the Secretary General of the Presidency, Jorge Wated, referred to the issue and said that the request to resign Falconí is a tough measure to a similar situation.

“What happened today in Quito is unacceptable. Hard times hard solutions “Wated wrote on Twitter confirming the replacement of the Health Minister.

SIXTH MINISTER OF HEALTH

Salinas will be the sixth Minister of Health since Moreno He became President, and the fifth since the pandemic began in Ecuador in February 2020.

Falconí He was appointed on March 19 as minister to replace Rodolfo Farfán, who had resigned without having served twenty days in office and just when criticism was raging for the controversial appearance of a list of privileged people in the vaccination process.

Farfán had in turn replaced Juan Carlos Zevallos, who resigned and left the country on February 27, when he had not completed a year in office and who was in the eye of the storm for having benefited a relative of his with the vaccination and other privileged.

Before him were Catalina Andramuño, who resigned with less than a year in office due to lack of budget to face the pandemic, and Verónica Espinosa, separated from the position in July 2019 amid criticism because a basket of new drugs was not approved.

On March 26, Falconí announced that he had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, and then remarked that he had not used his position to immunize himself.

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