RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Peruvian Ministry of Health announced that next weekend it would hold a fifth “vacunatón”, an uninterrupted vaccination day, in Lima and 16 other regions of the country to immunize 600,000 people over 38 years of age against covid-19.
In previous “marathon vaccinations”, the targets were exceeded, and these days were offered from Saturday to Sunday, especially to workers who were unable to get vaccinated at the usual times.
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Peru has administered 16 million vaccines; almost 7 million people have received both doses and 9 million the first one.
The director of Immunizations of the Ministry of Health, Gabriela Jiménez, informed this Tuesday that the day seeks to apply the second doses of Pfizer for those over 40 years of age and the first doses of Sinopharm for stragglers over 38 years of age.
“In Lima and Callao, we are summoning 140,000 people who are pending in the group of those who are still 40 to 44 years old, and also the population of 38 to 39 years old,” making a total of 300,000 citizens, Jimenez said.
The fifth “vacunatón” will be carried out simultaneously in the regions of Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cajamarca, Piura, Ica, Cusco, Lima Provincias, Amazonas, Puno, Tacna, Moquegua, Huánuco, Huancavelica, Áncash and Apurímac, where another 300,000 doses are expected to be applied.
In some regions, health authorities have authorized people over 18 years of age, given the smaller population in their localities, such as Tacna, Junin, and Ucayali.
Other groups that can also be vaccinated during the weekend are those over 50 years old and people with comorbidities. such as women .at least 28 weeks pregnant, adolescents with rare diseases, cancer, or organ transplants.
The pandemic has caused the infection of two million people in Peru, of which 197,487 died, and there are currently 4,733 patients hospitalized with the disease.