Nicaragua (under the COVAX initiative) took delivery yesterday of 135,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, also known as the University of Oxford Vaccine. Nicaragua joins Guatemala and El Salvador who have already received a COVAX delivery.
The delivery comes amid some issues regarding the vaccines safety. The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that they are satisfied with the continued use of AstraZeneca vaccine. However, they investigating if there is a connection between the AstraZeneca vaccine and the death of a 49 year old nurse from blood clots after she received the vaccine. The WHO’s investigation follows the suspension of the vaccine by several countries in Europe as a precautionary measure.
The WHO also says they have not sent any vaccine under the COVAX initiative from the lots used in the countries reporting issues with blood clotting. As well, the Oxford University Vaccine Group has released a comment stating that “evidence shows there is no increase in the thrombus (blood clot) phenomenon here in the UK, where most doses in Europe have so far been administered”.
18 Latin American countries are among the 142 that will receive the first 237 million doses that Covax will manage during the next three months. In Central America, the beneficiaries of the Covid initiative will be; Costa Rica with a total of 218,000 doses, El Salvador (225,000), Guatemala (724 ,000), Honduras (424,000), Nicaragua (432,000) and Panama (184,000). Guatemala and El Salvador have already received a COVAX delivery.
The 135,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine under the COVAX initiative can be added to the delivery, on February 25th 2021, of a donation from Russia of their Sputnik V vaccine. Russia delivered a so far unspecified amount of doses of the two part vaccine. The gift arrived following the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health approval of its emergency use. In addition, on March 7th 2021, Nicaragua took delivery of a donation of 200 thousand doses of the Indian produced “Covishield” Covid-19 vaccine and 300,000 more doses are expected. Meanwhile, Nicaragua’s vaccination program us under way.
The Covax initiative has been described as “the largest and most complex global immunization operation in history” with a goal of this year distributing at least 2 billion doses of Covid -19 vaccines, 1.3 billion of them in poor countries. The total could be as high as 2.5 billion doses (1.8 billion for developing countries).
