EFE | THE COUNTRY | Bogota
The National Institute for Drug and Food Surveillance (INVIMA), the agency that regulates the sector in Colombia, authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine against covid-19, of which the Government is already acquire 10 million doses, reported President Iván Duque.
“Another very important step has been taken today to advance the covid-19 vaccination program. Today INVIMA has already given permission for the use of the Pfizer vaccine in Colombia,” Duc said during the daily television program “Prevention and Action”, in which he talks about the measures his Government is taking to deal with the pandemic.
The president added that this process was carried out “in record time”, as “in a very short period more than 22,000 folios were analyzed by the technical team” after the request made by the pharmaceutical company for to the emergency use of your vaccine.
“This is a very important step and so we will continue to move forward with AstraZeneca, also with Jansen and with all the facilities within the COVAX strategy,” said Duc.
On December 30, the president reported that the government had closed a deal with Janssen Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, to acquire nine million vaccines against covid-19.
Twelve days earlier it had announced the conclusion of a negotiation to acquire 10 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer and 10 million from AstraZeneca, as well as an agreement through the COVAX platform to acquire 20 million more doses.
Thus, Colombia has 49 million vaccines insured for the National Coronavirus Vaccination Plan that will begin next February.
According to the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, to achieve “herd immunity” it is necessary to vaccinate 70% of the approximately 49 million Colombians, ie about 35.7 million people.
Colombia surpassed 1.7 million coronavirus infections on Tuesday with a record 16,835 new cases, a figure that surpassed the 16,314 infections of December 31.
According to the Ministry of Health, 1,702,966 people have contracted covid-19 in the country and at the moment there are 95,015 active cases, corresponding to 5.55%, while 1,559,010 appear as recovered, ie 91.54%.
During the day more than 241 deaths were reported, of which 219 belong to previous days, bringing the number of fatalities in the pandemic in Colombia to 44,426.