RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The 34,000 AstraZeneca vaccines against covid-19 that El Salvador donated to Honduras, after a request made by seven Honduran mayors to the president of that country, Nayib Bukele, arrived on Thursday.
The drugs entered Honduras in small trucks through the border point of El Poy, from where they will be taken to Tegucigalpa to the National Biological Center, according to the head of the Expanded Program of Immunization (PAI), Ida Berenice Molina.
El Salvador’s Minister of Health, Francisco Alabí, arrived at the customs point, who in a television interview in his country indicated that the donated lot will be used to vaccinate 17,000 people and that the donation “does not affect El Salvador’s rhythm and much less the strategy” of immunization.
Molina indicated that so far, no official information had been received from the health authorities on the amount of the vaccines, the brand, the expiration date, and other information required based on sanitary protocols. However, Alabí indicated at the border that they are available for any information required.
The seven mayors who requested Bukele, with whom they met this week in San Salvador and Alabí, are accompanying the caravan of trucks carrying the drugs from the Salvadoran capital.
One of the Honduran mayors indicated that the Secretary of Health, Alba Consuelo Flores, provides them with the facilities they require.
In addition, the mayors know that the vaccines will be administered by health personnel from the Ministry of Health.
Before the vaccines arrived in the country, some of the mayors demanded that they arrive today directly to their municipalities. The head of the PAI emphasized that this is not possible because not all communities have the cold chains needed to preserve the drugs.
The Salvadoran donation was received with joy by the Hondurans, mainly in the favored municipalities: Cedros, Ojojona, Santa María del Real, Manto, Arada, San José de Colinas, and San Marcos de Caiquín, in the center, east and west of the country.
Since the covid-19 pandemic began to spread in Honduras in March 2020, the state-run National Risk Management System (Sinager) has registered 222,992 infections and 5,853 deaths.
So far, less than 1% of Hondurans have been vaccinated against covid-19, out of the 9.5 million inhabitants of Honduras. However, pregnant women and children under 18 years of age are not included in the inoculation day.
Honduras is waiting for thousands of drugs, donated under the Covax mechanism, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and purchased, in addition to another acquisition being made by the Honduran Institute of Social Security (IHSS), without precise dates of arrival.