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(CNN) – More than 480 people, including several ministers and a former president, were silently vaccinated against Covid-19 in Peru even before the country’s official vaccination campaign began, says President Francisco Sagasti.
Sagasti announced Monday that 487 people “took advantage of their position” to receive the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine early, during a televised speech Monday night, state-run Andina reported.
“We reiterate our outrage and disappointment after being informed that 487 people, including many senior officials, took advantage of their position to be immunized with Sinopharm vaccines, which came as a complement to those used in clinical trials in our country,” Sagasti said. .
The disclosure follows local media reports that former President Martín Vizcarra and his wife, Maribel Díaz Cabello, were vaccinated while in office last October and did not reveal this information to the public.
Vizcarra has said that he and his wife were vaccinated as part of a clinical trial, but the Cayetano Heredia University, which is in charge of the trials, denied that they had participated as volunteers.
Not all officials who received the early vaccination were part of the Vizcarra administration. Sagasti noted that several members of his own government, including Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete, were also vaccinated early, Andina reported.
“We are outraged, and this causes us deep pain, because these people who made up our Transition and Emergency Government, did not fulfill their duty as public servants and showed loyalty to the President of the Council of Ministers and to me,” Sagasti said, according to Andean.
Astete, who led Peruvian negotiations to purchase the Sinopharm vaccine, said in a statement over the weekend that she had been vaccinated on January 22 with what she believed were the “remaining doses of the batch held by the Cayetano Heredia University. “.
Peru received its first 300,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine on February 7 and began distributing it to front-line healthcare workers two days later, becoming the first Latin American country to do so.
“As a result of the recent disclosure about the vaccination of (former) President Vizcarra and his wife, as well as the understandable impact that this news had on public opinion, I am aware of the serious mistake I made, which is why I decided not to receive the second dose, “Astete said.
The complete list of those vaccinated will be sent to the Comptroller General of the Republic, the Public Ministry, the State Attorney General’s Office and an investigation commission formed by the Minister of Health, Oscar Ugarte, he said.
The Chinese Embassy in Peru said they were aware of the reports but had no information on who was vaccinated.
“The Chinese side emphasizes that this clinical trial is carried out in accordance with the procedures required by the Peruvian authorities,” the embassy said in a statement. “The Chinese side has no information on the identity of those vaccinated.”
Peru became the first Latin American country to distribute the Sinopharm vaccine from China on February 9. Although other agreements with Pfzier / BioNTech and Oxford AstraZeneca have been finalized, the Sinopharm vaccine is the only vaccine being used for the country’s vaccination rollout at this time.
Peru currently has 1,238,501 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 43,880 reported deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
This story was first published on CNN.com ‘Hundreds of people were secretly vaccinated in Peru before the official launch, says the president’
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