Peru is getting another weapon in its battle against the spread of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
President Francisco Sagasti said his country will receive the first batch of 50,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Wednesday evening, with an equal amount arriving the rest of the week.
Peru expects to receive five million doses of the Pfizer vaccine by June after reaching an agreement early last month.
Sagasti said Peru will now have two different vaccines to fight the virus, which has propelled the country to one the most impacted in Latin America.
Peru began the first round immunization last month after receiving 300,000 doses of vaccine from China’s Sinopoharm laboratory.
The Peruvian leader also said that doses of vaccine from the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative are pending. The WHO program provides vaccines to low- and middle-income countries that have difficulty acquiring doses because of the limited global supply and logistical problems.
So far, Peru has confirmed more than 1,329,000 infections and 46,494 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Covid Resource Center.
