Paraguay breathes as 1 million doses donated by the United States arrive

Asuncion, July 9 (EFE). – Paraguay received this Friday one million doses from Pfizer donated by the United States, the largest shipment to reach the country, which will allow progress in vaccination that has so far benefited more than 900,000 people, mostly with an application, more than a target of more than four Millions of Paraguays.

The shipment landed at Asuncion International Airport to be stored in a government dispensary and since Saturday 217 vaccines have been distributed in the South American country, which has accumulated about 14,000 deaths from Covid.

This is in order to start next week vaccinating people between the ages of 35 and 49, and is also expected to be applied after that to adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 years with underlying diseases, a range compatible with the Pfizer vaccine.

Vice President Hugo Velasquez thanked the United States for the donation in his duties as CEO after President Mario Abdo Benítez’s trip to Miami this morning, after learning on the eve of the disappearance of three relatives in a building collapse in that town. .

“Today, hope is resurrected. We receive a million doses of the goods that humanity so desperately needs (… ), we thank the American people in the person of their President Biden and express the gratitude of the President of the Republic and everyone of Paraguay to the great North American nation,” said Velazquez.

“The donation is positive evidence of the strength of relations between the United States and Paraguay,” said Chargé d’Affairs, Joseph Salazar, at an official ceremony at the presidential breakwater.

The diversion represents a qualitative leap in the distribution of vaccines to Paraguay, whose government has entrusted the Kovacs multilateral mechanism from the beginning, from which it purchased about 4.3 million doses, of which it received 304,800 doses.

Paraguay began its coronavirus immunization plan in February, with white and elderly employees.

The South American country, with a population of just over 7 million people, has recorded 13,729 deaths, 388,138 recoveries and 434,264 infections, since March 2020, when the first case of coronavirus was detected. EFE

nfa / jm / ics