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Published Tuesday, January 26, 2021
48,000-plus vaccines against covid-19
have been applied since December
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Social Security reported having applied 48,128 vaccines since the start of the vaccination campaign against covid-19 in December 2020. Of these, 45,707 correspond to first-dose applications and 2,421 are second-dose vaccines.
"People with complete vaccination doses will increase during the following weeks because, despite not having vaccine shipments arrived, the second dose had already been saved," Leandra Abarca-Gómez, from the Epidemiological Surveillance department said.
The vaccination campaign will continue for the next few weeks to complete the application of the second dose to people who have already received their first dose.
Social Security announced that, due to the delayed delivery of the next vaccine shipment, they are extracting an extra dose from each vial (a bottle that includes the amount equivalent to six doses) of the vaccine.
Getting six doses for each vial will help to continue with the vaccination campaign, they said.
According to the Ministry of Health, the Pfizer company updated the scientific documentation of the vaccine to obtain up to 6 doses from each vial and not 5 as initially recommended.
On Thursday, Daniel Salas, Minister of Health, announced at a press conference that Pfizer would delay the delivery of vaccines against covid-19 to Costa Rica.
"Pfizer informed us that due to the adjustments they are making to increase the number of vaccines, there will be a gap in the shipment of vaccines," Salas said.
The delay will not affect the scheduling of the vaccine campaign this month, Salas said reassuring people. "Vaccinations in Costa Rica will continue with the plan that has been arranged," he said.
All the people who have already received the first dose will definitely receive the second dose as planned. The country has enough vaccines in stock for them. "We are even going to continue applying the first doses, but at a slightly slower rate," Salas said.
Pfizer is expected to resume the vaccine delivery in the second week of February. And in March the order purchased by Costa Rica should be completed.
According to Román Macaya, president of Social Security, the country will stop receiving approximately 60,000 vaccines per week, due to the worldwide delay in vaccine exports. "We are in global circumstances, what the company reported is that they are in a process of expanding production capacity to make an increase of more than 50% of what had been projected," Macaya said.
Last Tuesday, a DHL flight from Miami to Costa Rica landed with the last cargo of 16,575 vaccine doses against covid-19 purchased from Pfizer.
This is the fifth vaccine shipment that has landed in the country. The first batch of 9,750 doses arrived on Dec. 23. The second cargo with 11,700 arrived on Dec. 30. The third set with 33,150 doses arrived on Jan. 5 and the fourth shipment with 33,150 doses arrived on Jan. 12.
So far, 104,325 doses have been imported of the 3 million doses purchased for $36 million.
While health authorities plan for the vaccine shipment delay, covid-19 continues to rapidly infect people in the country. On Monday, the most updated report about covid-19 in Costa Rica revealed that:
• 355 new covid-19 cases are reported, bringing the total to 39,038 current active cases.
• 23,693 foreign-born people have been infected, totaling 190,745 cases since March, approximately 12.4% of the total cases. Of these, authorities confirmed the death of 32 foreign-born patients. But since October, there is no updated information about foreign-born deaths due to covid-19.
• 478 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 185 patients are in ICU’s in delicate health conditions. Their ages range from 1 to 92-years-old. And 293 patients are in recovery rooms. Many of the remaining infected patients are quarantined in their homes.
• 149,149 patients have fully recovered, a 78.2% recovery rate of the total cases since March.
• 571,988 covid-19 tests have been conducted in Costa Rica since March, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering of Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.
• 2,588 deaths are listed as covid-19 related, approximately 1.3% death rate. Of these 966 are women and 1,592 men. The ages range from a 2-year-old to a 101-year-old.
Readers can see the current number of infected people in each district at the National Distance Education University on its Covid-19 Map.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has killed more than 2.1 million people worldwide.
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What have you heard about delivery delays of the vaccine against covid-19 in your country? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com
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