Anticovid vaccines run out as Dominican Republic awaits arrival of more doses

The Ministry of Public Health reported that up to this Sunday, 400,041 people were vaccinated against covid-19. Having reached this figure, the Dominican Republic is in a critical situation; since it only has 8,959 doses to continue vaccinating, the rest must be stored for the second injection.

However, the new Minister of Health, Daniel Rivera, informed this morning that there are enough doses to administer the second dose and continue inoculating people in the next phase.

“The vaccines that will be left are perfect for the second dose, to continue vaccinating, and on March 15, one million will arrive, and on March 25, another million will arrive,” assured the official.

So far, the Dominican Republic has only received three batches of vaccines: 50,000 doses of Covishield and 768,000 of Sinovac, for a total of 818,000 vials.

Public Health informed last February 26 through its Twitter account that this amount would be enough to inoculate 409,000 Dominicans; the other half would be used for the second dose that these people should receive between 4 or 6 weeks.

This means that Public Health should not deliver more than 8,959 doses to the vaccination centers today.

In his accountability speech, Luis Abinader told the country that “in the next few days 90,000 covishield vaccines would arrive.” However, he did not specify a date; 9 days have already passed since this announcement.

Likewise, regarding the arrival of more doses of Sinovac, the Chinese vaccine, he assured what the Minister of Health reiterated today:

“We have assured the supply of 2 million more doses with this pharmaceutical company that will arrive in two parts, on March 15 and 25, which will allow us to complete the first two phases of vaccination. And for greater security, and given the uncertainty of delivery, we also reserved with Sinovac 8 million more vaccines: 4 million to be delivered in April and the same amount in May.”

The president expects that by June, 80% of the population will be vaccinated.