Early this Wednesday, March 10, the fifth batch of the Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in Panama. This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Health, Ivette Berrío. The official explained that this batch is 42,210 vaccines and will be used to continue with the vaccination days for those over 60 years in various townships of the country.
Then, the President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo, confirmed that indeed this morning a fifth batch of
vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 will arrive. This statement was made at the Belisario Porras school, where this Tuesday he received his first dose of the
vaccine from the pharmaceutical duo
Pfizer-
BioNTech.
Cortizo said that the vaccination plan is conditioned on the number of doses delivered per week. However, he stressed that the organization, at the national level, is already prepared to apply the
vaccines in the 39 circuits of the country. "Better times are coming," said Cortizo, after receiving the
vaccine.
Meanwhile, the Vice Minister of Health recalled that the pharmaceutical company
Pfizer /
BioNTech is scheduled to deliver a total of 450,000
vaccines to Panama in the first quarter of this year. Therefore, Berrío estimated that by March 30, the delivery of that quantity of
vaccines will have already been completed.
When questioned in Telemetro Reporta that this fifth batch was one of the smallest it receives in the country, Berrío indicated that "we feel calm" and there is a schedule provided by the pharmaceutical company.
He added that in that schedule he shows how they have organized to distribute the
vaccines. "The production and demand at the international level is enormous, however they have been complying with Panama," he said.
The first batch, which arrived in the country on January 20, was 12,840 doses, while the second was 67,860 and arrived on February 17.
While on February 24, 77,200 doses of the
vaccine arrived in Panama , which became the third batch.
Meanwhile, the fourth batch of
vaccines was 87,550 doses and arrived at the Tocumen International Airport at dawn on March 3.
With the arrival of the fifth batch of
vaccines, Panama will have a total of 287,660 doses. Therefore, the pharmaceutical company has to deliver –before March 30– a total of 162,340 doses to complete the 450,000
vaccines that the country bought.
On the other hand, the Expanded Immunization Program of the Ministry of Health reported that from January 20 to Monday, March 8, 211,751 doses of
vaccines against
Covid-19 have been applied.