translated from Spanish: Peru reaches four million doses received from Sinopharm and struggles with misinformation and prejudice against the vaccine

Peru received on Sunday its fourth million doses of the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, while the government is striving to promote it and counter the smear campaign, without scientific evidence, that this vaccine has been subjected to by the opposition. This fourth million doses arrived in two shipments of 700,000 and 300,000 vaccines, respectively, which were received by The Minister of Health, Hernando Cevallos, at lima airport.” With this new million doses of Sinopharm, vaccination against covid-19 will be scheduled in the coming days. The distribution will be democratic among all regions, with the aim of continuing to protect as many people as possible with the first and second doses,” said Cevallos.Sinopharm was the first vaccine to arrive in Peru, with a first batch of one million doses in February that served to vaccinate medical personnel, armed forces, police, firefighters and seniors. However, the supply of vaccines from the Chinese state laboratory was suspended for several months after the secret and irregular vaccinations received by former President Martín Vizcarra and other senior officials in the framework of the clinical trial of this vaccine that was being carried out in Peru were revealed.This was followed by a smear campaign by the opposition by claiming without scientific evidence that it was not an effective vaccine, something that has been denied with the results obtained from its application and from different clinical trials. Among the Peruvian medical personnel to whom Sinopharm’s vaccine was applied, mortality from COVID-19 was reduced by 98%, according to data from the Ministry of Health.Sinopharm’s vaccine shipments to Peru resumed in July with one million, which was followed by another million in early August, and now this new million arrived this Sunday in addition to the previous ones. In addition, on Thursday a shipment of nearly 600,000 Pfizer vaccines is expected to arrive in Peru, part of the more than 32 million doses that the Peruvian State has contracted with this laboratory. In total, Peruvian authorities plan to receive 8 million vaccines between Sinopharm, Pfizer and AstraZeneca during July, while by September it will be 13 million and another 16 million in October. Thus, they hope to reach 50% of the vaccinated population in September, a percentage that currently stands at 20% since some 6.7 million people are vaccinated with the full two-dose regimen.

Original source in Spanish