Peru: New research on out-of-range coronavirus vaccinations

His principles Peru announced a second inquiry into further allegations of preferential access to vaccines for the new pandemic coronavirus in the Amazon, just weeks after prosecutors revealed that Andean officials had received doses before the general population.

Loreto Governor Elisban Ochoa Sosa told reporters that at least 64 people, especially government officials, were vaccinated off-line with the Pfizer / BioNTech product in the remote area.

Peruvian Deputy Health Minister Percy Minaya called the privileged treatment of officials “unacceptable” during a televised interview, promising that the matter would be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.

Authorities launched an investigation in February into a similar, much wider scandal in which, according to prosecutors and officials, nearly 500 officials and personalities were vaccinated outside clinical trials before the immunization campaign even began. The outrage following the revelations forced the former Minister of Health and the former Minister of Foreign Affairs to submit their resignations to the caretaker President Francisco Sagasti.

In the remote town of Iquitos, in the Amazon, in the Loreto region, vaccination began a week ago with the Pfizer product. However, according to Mr. Ochoa, two mayors, two former mayors and other local officials were vaccinated, although they did not qualify.

“It is outrageous that officials and public officials violated the trust and (…) were vaccinated illegally for their own benefit,” the Auditor General’s office said in a statement.

Peru, with a population of 33 million – which has so far recorded more than 1.4 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 and more than 50,000 deaths from COVID-19 while suffering from a second wave – has given at least the first dose of vaccines for the new coronavirus available to about 500,000 people so far, according to official data.

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