Peru receives first batch of 117,500 vaccines from Covax Facility

Peru received on Wednesday a first batch of 117,500 Pfizer vaccines sent by the international Covax Facility as part of an agreement to deliver 13.2 million doses to the country to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aircraft carrying the vaccines from Amsterdam was received at Lima's international airport by Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti, who said that this first delivery "is something that fills Peruvians with joy and hope".

Sagasti stressed that, with this batch, Peru becomes the second country in Latin America, after Colombia, to receive the Pfizer vaccines sent by Covax, which will be added to the batches of 50,000 vaccines delivered weekly by the same laboratory as part of a direct purchase agreement for 20 million doses.

The Peruvian president highlighted that the total batch of 167,500 vaccines from Pfizer included the first shipment from Covax, a "multilateral effort that has allowed many countries that would not have had access to the vaccine" to have access to it.

He stressed that this is "a very special project", which is "the product of the efforts of several international organisations", which will now allow Peru to continue with the "complex and difficult task of vaccinating all Peruvians".

He added that the vaccination campaign, which began almost a month ago in the country, "continues without pause" and is "trying to accelerate the pace, which will depend on the availability of the vaccine".

Peru began the vaccination with one million doses purchased from the Chinese laboratory Sinopharm, which is applied to national health personnel, while from Monday it is vaccinating the elderly and personnel of the Armed Forces and the National Police with Pfizer vaccines.

The Ministry of Health reported on Wednesday that in the last 24 hours another 3,765 cases and 160 deaths from covid-19 were detected, bringing to 1,387,457 the total number of people infected and 48,323 the number of deaths in the country since a year ago.

In addition, another 6,556 people were reported recovered, bringing to 1,294,623 the number of people who were discharged from a medical centre or completed their home quarantine period.

There are currently 44,511 active cases of the disease in Peru, of which 14,941 are hospitalised and 2,204 of these are in intensive care units (ICU).