The government of Peru has agreed to purchase an initial batch of one million COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinopharm for a sum of $26 million. This is the first part of a deal to buy 38 million doses from the Chinese company.
While the nation’s vaccine program has initially taken long to launch, Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti announced that his interim administration has negotiated deals with both Sinopharm and AstraZeneca to ensure that Peru’s citizens receive protection against the coronavirus. He described the payment to Sinopharm as a “concrete and objective step the government is taking so that the vaccines arrive as soon as possible.”
Economy Minister Waldo Mendoza revealed that the Peruvian government has been in talks with ten vaccine providers in an effort to find the most immediate solution. He also revealed that the government had allocated a budget of $2.7 billion to the nation’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
With more than one million cases reported since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Peru has detected over one million positive cases. With cases surging during the festive season, many hospitals across the country are short on beds in their intensive care wards.
