Uruguayan Air Force helicopter carrying Pfizer vaccines crashed; no fatalities

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A Uruguayan Air Force helicopter carrying a shipment of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccines crashed and caught fire while en route to the department of Rocha. The Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, reported on Twitter that the crew members are out of danger.

“Good news that the Air Force personnel who crashed carrying vaccines to Rocha are out of danger. Thanks to the Ministry of Health, the National Emergency System, the Highway Police and the Calmette laboratory, the operation was immediately set up so that the vaccines could reach Rocha and Chuy,” he said in his account on the social network.

The two boxes that the helicopter was carrying were lost in the fire. The newspaper El Observador published that these vaccines were intended to inoculate people over 80 years of age in Rocha.

Diego Pintado, Director of Health of Rocha, reported that the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure, which led to an emergency landing. He confirmed that, when it landed, it caught fire and suffered total losses.

The three crew members suffered minor injuries. One of them is under observation at a local hospital and the other two were taken to the Military Hospital, reported El País.

The Air Force indicated that an investigation has been launched to determine the causes of the accident. The Bell 212 helicopter was part of the distribution plan for the third shipment of Pfizer vaccines that arrived in Uruguay on Wednesday.

Over 400,000 Uruguayans received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccines

More than 400,000 Uruguayans received the first dose of CoronaVac and Pfizer vaccines against Covid-19 since the inoculation plan planned by the Government of Luis Lacalle Pou started on March 1.

As could be seen in the monitor developed by the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), 403,207 people – 11.50% of the population – had been inoculated with the vaccines of the Chinese and American laboratories, after 23,533 of the 32,638 people who had reservations for this Wednesday had passed through the country’s vaccination stations.

The website shows that 291,733 people are already registered as of Thursday, although this number includes those who will be inoculated for the first time and those who, as of next week, will receive the second dose of Sinovac -which was the first vaccine administered-.

Uruguay acquired 3.8 million doses between Sinovac and Pfizer, of which 1,850,000 are already in the country. In addition, it was registered in the Covax platform, under the umbrella of the World Health Organization (WHO), through which 450,000 doses will soon arrive from AstraZeneca.

Subsequently, Lacalle Pou’s government finalized the acquisition of 1.25 million more doses from the Chinese laboratory, which, according to a press conference on Tuesday, could arrive in May.

The South American country started its vaccination plan on March 1, with the establishment of priority groups to administer the vaccine from the Chinese laboratory (teachers, policemen, firemen, military personnel in service and workers of the Uruguayan Institute for Children and Adolescents under 60 years of age).

Faced with a lower demand than expected, the Health Ministry sent doses to the departments bordering Brazil and to the prison population, and opened the schedule for people between 50 and 70 years of age.

Last Sunday, it also opened the schedule to vaccinate the population from 18 to 70 years of age during the Tourism Week (or Easter Week), an age group that exceeds 2.3 million inhabitants.

However, only 170,000 – among them the head of State, who will be inoculated with the first dose on Monday 29th – received an appointment for those days, since the rest of the quotas had to be administered later.

On Friday March 12th, inoculation of healthcare personnel began and the surplus Pfizer doses were administered in homes for the elderly and people over 80 years of age.

Since the pandemic began on March 13, 2020, Uruguay has accumulated 86,007 positive cases (14,826 people currently suffering from the disease, of which 202 are in intensive care) and 827 deaths.

Source: Infobae