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Published Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Vaccination failures continue,
says report
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A Social Security audit on the accomplishment of the vaccination campaign against covid-19, resulted in showing failures, highlighting how people were vaccinated without being on the priority list, a so-called Group A.
The pre-selected Group A includes elderly people living in nursing homes, nursing home employees, health workers, members of the police force, firefighters and National Commission Emergency workers.
The most recent case happened at the Max Peralta Hospital in Cartago Province, where security guards, radiology technicians and general services personnel were vaccinated even though they are not on the pre-selected list. Allegedly, they were registered as if they were working as nurses in the Specialized Unit for the care of covid-19 patients, but they aren't.
According to the audit report, these people were vaccinated even before the health workers who are directly attending patients with covid-19.
This case is only one of many failures in the vaccination program previously reported by Social Security.
Last week, the audit process found fails in the people who got the vaccine against covid-19 at the Carlos María Ulloa nursing home, located in Guadalupe Canton, San José Province.
According to the investigation, it was detected that the information provided by the people in charge of the nursing home shows errors.
The first was detected after the Ministry of Health reported 171 workers at the nursing home. However, the people in charge of the nursing home reported 188 workers, that is, 17 extra workers.
But those 17 people are not registered as formal workers of the nursing home. Furthermore, these people are not registered with Social Security as formal nursing home workers.
The auditors found that these people are registered as workers of other organizations and not of the nursing home.
The audit sent a report of the investigation to the Ministry of Health, where it is determined that there is a non-compliance with the guidelines established in the vaccination campaign.
Another case was reported in the first week of February where auditors found several faults of the vaccination campaign at the Enrique Baltodano Hospital in Liberia Canton, Guanacaste Province.
According to the findings of the inspection, 78 professionals who work in the emergency room and the special unit to treat covid-19 patients were not vaccinated, instead, other hospital workers got the treatment.
Sixteen hospital workers should not have been vaccinated because their roles are different. They are not part of the emergency room staff, the delivery unit, the covid-19 unit or the medical service.
The correct action would have been to inoculate workers in emergency areas dedicated 100 % to working the covid-19-specific areas, Social Security said in its statement.
Authorities will continue investigating these cases to find the people responsible for the failures.
While the vaccination campaign continues, the Ministry of Health reported on Monday the following updates:
• 101,183 doses of covid-19 vaccines have been applied. Reaching a national vaccination rate of 1.96 per 100 inhabitants.
• 208 new covid-19 cases are reported, bringing the total to 27,612 current active cases.
• 25,015 foreign-born people have been infected as part of the 202,674 cases since March, approximately 12.3% 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.
• 268 patients are being treated in public hospitals, where 140 patients are in ICU’s in delicate health conditions. And 128 patients are in recovery rooms. Many of the remaining infected patients are quarantined in their homes.
• 172,280 patients have fully recovered, an 85% recovery rate of the total cases since March.
• 662,941 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.
• 2,782 deaths are listed as covid-19 related, approximately 1.4% death rate.
Readers can see the current number of infected people in each district on the National Distance Education University on its Covid-19 Map.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic has killed more than 2.4 million people worldwide.
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How could Social Security better regulate the vaccination campaign? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to news@amcostarica.com
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