MINSA, the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, has announced that they are closer to being able to start providing the WHO’s Covax Vaccine. The Covid-19 vaccinations will start with the priority groups of health workers, the elderly with chronic diseases and young adults with underlying diseases and later the rest of the population.
Their hopes are pinned on the delivery of a little over 500,000 doses of the Oxford – AstraZeneca vaccine obtained through the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored Covax System. This program was established to promote the rapid develop, manufacture and fair delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to poorer nations. There is no firm date from MINSA, however the WHO have suggested that these Covax System vaccines could reach countries such as Nicaragua sometime between February and June. The delay with the release of the AstraZeneca vaccine has been caused by pending medical reviews that the World Health Organization requires.
Under the Covax System, Nicaragua should receive enough of the vaccine in stages to be able to vaccinate up to 20% of the population or about 1.3 million people. MINSA has previously stated that coverage at least 70% of the population needs to be achieved in order to obtain an adequate level of protection. The government of Nicaragua says that combined with the Covax System supplies, they will have sufficient funds to purchase more vaccines which together will be enough to vaccinate the entire estimated 6.5 million population.
Nicaraguan also has two other potential suppliers; Sputnik V developed by Russia and Covishield from India. Both of these vaccines have received special certification by the Nicaraguan authorities for “emergency use”.
Meanwhile, another vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech has received the go ahead from the WHO for early distribution for emergency use under a global pilot program. So far, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru will receive 377,910 doses of the vaccine.
