Ecuador’s Lasso presents Vaccination Plan as most important economic program

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, presented this Monday, May 31, one week after taking office, the new Vaccination Plan to immunize 9 million in 100 days of Government, as the most important economic reactivation program.

“It is not only a health program, it is not only a social program, but it is also the most important economic program we can present to society,” he said at the Salesian University in Quito, where he unveiled his initiative.

It is an ambitious project that seeks the immunization of 72% of the population in the next three months to achieve the long-awaited herd immunity, in a country where school classes are still mostly virtual, teleworking is still in place, and the economy survives thanks to international support.

This new program is led by the Ministry of Public Health. It supports the Vice-Presidency and the logistics and census population data of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

The prior government of President Lenín Moreno assured that it surpassed the figure of 2 million inoculations against Covid-19. It had contracted vaccines for 22 million dollars so that the new Government could continue the vaccination process. Still, the delay in the arrival of the doses and the slowness with which they were applied complicated its intention to vaccinate 2 million people by May 24.

VACCINE DIPLOMACY

To reach the goal set, Ecuador will have to receive new vaccines and in large quantities, something that Lasso, Moreno’s successor, is negotiating directly with several countries and companies.

In this sense, he said he had requested 18 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, which has been officially approved in the country.

He is also in contact with the Chinese Government which this weekend sent to the country 700,000 doses of Sinovac and advanced that another half million of the Chinese vaccine will arrive in June, when new shipments and vials are expected, such as the CanSino single-dose vaccine.

President Biden has said he plans to donate about 80 million vaccines to the world, and its “main target is Latin America, and Ecuador”, Lasso added, “while waiting for the number of vaccines” to be received as part of this program.

Since vaccination began at the beginning of the year, Ecuador has received a total of 3.4 million doses from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac.

NEW GOVERNMENT, NEW PROGRAM

The Minister of Public Health, Ximena Garzón, pointed out that the program is coordinated between several ministries and public and private institutions. Thanks to a link, citizens can find out in which of the four phases they will be vaccinated.

For this purpose, 317 sites have been set up for the vaccination of one hundred people per day, between 8 AM and 5 PM on weekdays.

At the same time, during the weekend, people “left behind” for various reasons will have the option of getting vaccinated, and 900 volunteers will work all over the country to reach communities and people who cannot access or have limited mobility to go to the appointment.

So far, the official website of the 9/100 Vaccination Plan has registered seven million consultations, revealed the vice-president of the CNE, Enrique Pita, who added that more than 300,000 interested parties had registered an address update to be able to get vaccinated.

From the Plan’s communication department, they specified that foreigners in the country would be vaccinated starting in August.

COMBATING HEALTH CORRUPTION

During previous governments, Ecuador has undergone innumerable delays in the reception of vials and suffered irregularities by public officials.

“The health system as a bargaining chip for political negotiations is over, ” said Lasso today, when he stated that the health system’s budget, which is around 5 billion dollars, “belongs to the Ecuadorian people”.

The president asserted that vaccination is “open to all citizens” and confirmed that he had not been vaccinated but would wait until it was the turn of the 65-year-olds.