RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Panama accumulated up to this Sunday 442,295 confirmed cases of covid-19 and 6,906 deaths after more than 16 months of the pandemic and is preparing to include the private health system in the national immunization program against the disease started last January 20.
The Ministry of Health (Minsa) emphasized that as of Monday, August 9, a total of 9 private hospitals in the capital will administer vaccines, for the moment only from Pfizer, to priority groups, including children aged 12 years and older with chronic diseases.
This initiative aims to “speed up the vaccination process and inoculate as many people as possible”, especially when Panama is experiencing a third “attenuated” pandemic wave compared to the first two, which may be complicated by the arrival of the contagious delta variant.
“We already have a community case” in the western province of Chiriqui, bordering Costa Rica, “beware, let’s not be confident, because the delta variant is giving problems to the United States, which is a power, to India, Colombia, United Kingdom,” said Friday the Minister of Health, Luis Francisco Sucre.
In Panama, a country of 4.28 million inhabitants, 3,142,065 doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s covid-19 vaccine have been administered since January to date, which together has delivered just over 4 million units to the country.
This same Sunday, 163,200 doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine arrived, which has delivered 681,600 doses since last April, a preparation administered to people over 30 years of age.
Panama aims to vaccinate 70% of its population against covid this year and, to that end, has committed to purchase 7.2 million doses from Pfizer, 1.1 million from AstraZeneca, and 1.1 million through the multilateral Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO), according to official data.
This Sunday, 979 new cases and 12 deaths from covid-19 were reported, and 10,963 tests were applied to detect the disease, which yielded a positivity of 8.9%, above the 5% or less than the WHO considers a pandemic control parameter.
There are 101 patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICU) and 436 in the general ward, while 10,383 are isolated at home and 308 in hotels, indicated the daily epidemiological report of the Minsa.