Guatemala awaits arrival of second batch of Russian Covid-19 vaccines

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Guatemala has 2,535 people fully vaccinated (two doses) against Covid-19 and is awaiting this week the arrival of the second batch of the Sputnik V immunizer; however, authorities do not yet know the exact day of arrival in the country.

Tuesday’s update on the disease by the Ministry of Health indicates that 291,108 people have received one dose of the vaccine and are awaiting the second one.

According to the same source, more than 90% of the vaccines supplied are from AstraZeneca and a smaller percentage from Moderna and Sputnik V.

The vast majority of people vaccinated, including the 2,535 who have received the two doses, belong to the first line of care for the disease or are over 70 years of age.

On Monday, Deputy Health Minister Nancy Pezzarossi assured Congress that another 50,000 new doses of the Russian vaccine, whose delivery was delayed earlier this month due to a transportation problem, are scheduled to arrive on Thursday.

However, the official said that she still does not have an established schedule to receive the totality of the 16 million immunizers that Guatemala bought from Russia. Only a first batch of 50,000 has been received.

According to the report released on Tuesday by the health authorities, in the last 24 hours, the Central American country registered another 20 deaths due to SARS-CoV-2.

In that period, 7,366 tests were carried out nationwide, of which 1,256 Guatemalans tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases of this deadly disease to 242,971.

The official report states that to date, Covid-19 has caused 7,913 deaths in the Central American nation.

However, the figure could be higher, as a study released in March by the non-governmental organization Laboratorio de Datos, carried out between March 2020 and the same month of 2021, determined that more than 15,000 people had in fact died from the virus, based on information from the state-run National Registry of Persons (Renap) that records births and deaths.

In total, Guatemala has received 608,200 doses of vaccines to prevent the spread of Covid-19, both through donations and private acquisition or through the Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO).