Peru reaches five million vaccinated with two doses, 16% of its population

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to the Ministry of Health, Peru already has more than 5 million people vaccinated with the full two-dose schedule to protect against Covid-19, which represents about 16% of the national population.

In total, 5,265,820 people have already received both doses in Peru, in a process currently focused on the 40-year-old and over segment of the population. However, some regions, such as  southern Tacna, are already vaccinating those over 30 years of age.

More than 8 million people, 24% of the population, have received the first dose, bringing the total number of doses applied to more than 13.2 million.

Within that group, around half a million people did not keep their appointment to receive the second dose, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health, so they are not guaranteed effective protection against the coronavirus.

“We need to reach 60% or 70% of the population, and we still have a significant gap, so we hope that more vaccines will arrive and move them to the most remote places,” said the new Minister of Health, Hernando Cevallos, after receiving last Friday a batch of 197,000 doses from Pfizer.

Until the end of the year, Peru has guaranteed about 100 million vaccines from various laboratories. However, currently, only the American Pfizer, the British AstraZeneca, and the Chinese Sinopharm are being applied.

In terms of the incidence of the disease, Peru is at one of the lowest levels of the entire pandemic, as only 682 new symptomatic cases were reported on the last day of July. At the same time, the accumulated total amounts to more than 2 million.

In terms of mortality, Peru continues to be the country with the highest mortality rate globally, with nearly 200,000 deaths, or an average of 594 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.