QCOSTARICA – The Government of Costa Rica announced on Monday the signing of the contract with Pfizer for the purchase of 3.5 million doses of the vaccine against covid-19, which will be used in children and in people who require the third dose.
These vaccines will be administered in 2022 and correspond to 1.5 million doses for children between 5 and 11 years of age, and 2 million for third doses that will be administered to first responders, the elderly population and immunosuppressed people.
The announcement was made by President Carlos Alvarado this Monday during a visit to the vaccination center of the National Children’s Hospital where vaccination was opened to minors between 12 and 17 years of age.
“Today we want to inform that Costa Rica has already signed an agreement with Pfizer / BioNTech to access 3.5 million vaccines by 2022. These doses correspond to those approved for boys and girls from 5 to 11 years old. and for the third dose of first responders, the elderly population and immunosuppressed people,” stated Alvarado.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Pedro González, who accompanied the president, asserted that “this agreement brings us one more step on the road to the total protection of our population, because it specifies the hard work of weeks in negotiations to obtain the necessary doses for minors between 5 and 11 years and people whose risk condition is essential to apply the third dose,” he said.
During the first contract with Pfizer / BioNTech, 6,002,165 doses were contracted, of which the country has received a total of 4,893,005 doses, which represents 81.5% of the total vaccines contracted during this year.