QCOSTARICA – The Government of Canada confirmed the donation of 319,000 vaccines against covid-19, whose arrival is scheduled for Sunday, September 5.
According to the announcement made by Casa Presidencial (Government House) on Thursday, they are doses produced by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford that are delivered to the country through the Covax mechanism and as a result of bilateral diplomatic efforts.
The donation will give another boost to the campaign started on Monday by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) to advance the application of second doses to the population aged 30 to 57 years.
The intention is to attack the increase in infections in recent weeks, especially due to the circulation of the delta variant.
The number of new infections has grown steadily over the last two weeks, over 20% per week.
The pandemic peak has saturated hospitals.
With this delivery, Costa Rica would reach this week the arrival of almost 695,000 vaccines: 204,000 doses of the AstraZeneca / Oxford were received on Wednesday and 171,990 from Pfizer / BioNTech Thursday, both from direct purchases with the pharmaceuticals and the 319,000 doses donated from Canada.
President Carlos Alvarado made the announcement during a visit to the Moravia Health Area Extramural Vaccination Center, located in Lincoln Square.
During the activity, the president insisted to the unvaccinated population that they must protect themselves and insisted on the need to maintain hygiene measures, distancing and use of a mask.
As reported by the Universidad Hispanoamericana (UH), the contagion rate increased again after a week of decline, when it already showed high levels.
The national indicator is at 1.15, that is, a group of 100 carriers of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, would transmit the infection to 115 people.
A week ago it was at 1.07.
The donation from Canada is the second-largest donation of vaccines that the country receives. The first was in July by the United States, which made a donation of 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, allowing Costa Rica to intensify its vaccination program, moving from a priority group program to one of age.
The arrival of larger quantities of vaccines from the pharmas and the donations has allowed the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) to advance its vaccination of people between 30 and 57 years from the spread of twelve weeks to eight between shots.
As of August 30, 2021, the ,the CCSS reports applying 4,278,505 doses, of which 3,059,023 (59.25%) are first doses and 1,219,482 (23.62%) are second doses.
The CCSS target is to vaccinate 4,274,344 people aged 12 and over of the country’s total population of 5,163,021 (based on 2021 CCSS actuarial projections).
