Bolivia calls for strategy change with 3.1 million “stalled” vaccines

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Bolivia has a total of 3.1 million vaccines against Covid-19 “stalled” or not yet administered to patients, out of the 9 million received, raising concerns of new infection outbreaks, according to Ministry of Health data released on Monday (30).

At a press conference in La Paz, Deputy Minister of Epidemiological Promotion and Surveillance María Renee Castro lamented that vaccines “are stored in refrigerators” and urged the governments and municipalities to make an “effort” to ensure that the vaccines “reach the population.”

“It is necessary that subnational governments hire personnel to guarantee mobile brigades to take the vaccines to the population rather than waiting for the population to go to vaccination posts,” she said, calling for a strategy change.

Regions such as Santa Cruz, the hardest hit by the pandemic, has 766,783 doses pending administration, while in La Paz there are 541,052 available and in Cochabamba 335,572 doses are stored in cold containers, according to Ministry data.

In the remaining 6 departments the situation varies according to their population, as the number of unused vaccines ranges from 99,627 to 281,708, according to the data.

The Deputy Minister stressed that of the 3.1 million vaccines available, 2.2 million are first doses and 1 million are for the second administration and that even Janssen single-dose vaccines remain in departmental health agencies’ offices.

Castro said that organizing brigades and administering vaccines door to door “is the direct responsibility and obligation of subnational governments” and thus urged them to “fulfill their role” as more vaccines will continue to reach the country.

Subnational governments “will be held responsible for the 4th and 5th wave to come,” Castro said, referring to these administrative bodies’ duties.

Bolivia has immunized 53% of its vaccine-eligible population with the administration of 3,198,735 first doses, while 36%, some 2,652,059 people, have been fully vaccinated with the second dose, Castro reported.

This week, Bolivia is expecting the delivery of new batches of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to be administered to people who will complete or exceed the 90-day interval since the application of the first dose.

Since the start of the pandemic in March last year, Bolivia has reported 18,411 deaths and 490,056 confirmed cases, of which 38,292 remain active.