In an inexplicable decision, Health Ministry officials presented the anti-vaccine vaccines in drug boxes that arrived two weeks earlier. Bukele came out to say that boxes of other vaccines had been recycled, which was described as a mistake by representatives of the medical guild.
The Salvadoran government deployed a large number of soldiers, medical personnel, helicopters, boats, trucks with signs announcing the content to be moved, cameras, drones, photographers and journalists to inform the Salvadoran population about the arrival of 20,000 doses of the vaccine. against COVID-19, on February 17, as a product of a purchase made by the Bukele administration at the Serum Institute of India, according to the communication from the government apparatus.
Although neither President Bukele nor Health Minister Francisco Alabi detailed the cost of buying Covishield vaccines, which has the endorsement of English laboratory AstraZeneca, they did insist that they are not the product of a government donation from India, and remarked that these 20,000 doses were the first to enter the country.
SEE: Doctors consider it “ridiculous” that the government recycles boxes of measles vaccines to transport doses of COVID-19
The target population of first-line health personnel to be vaccinated is 50,000 people, so the amount of immunizations does not cover the total population. Nor has the government said whether 10,000 of the amount received on Wednesday should be divided for the first dose and the same amount for the second.
Government social media has been filled with images with Health personnel receiving the first doses in different parts of the country in the following hours.
Detail of the vaccine box against COVID-19 delivered in Santa Rosa de Lima. / Photo EDH courtesy
The beginning of the questions
But on Thursday, early in the morning, another version of the arrival of immunizations emerged. A photograph, uploaded by the Secretary of Government Communications on Twitter showing the labels or vignettes in one of the boxes in which they carried the vaccines against COVID-19. By reading and tracking the information on the labels you could know that this box entered El Salvador on February 3.
Hence the question: If the label on the box where the Covishield vaccine is being transported reports that it entered the country on 3 February, why does the Government announce its arrival by the 17th?
Journalist Cecibel Romero, who collaborates with Salut amb Lupa, identified that one of the boxes delivered on Wednesday night at a health post in Santa Rosa de Lima, La Unión, included two vignettes.
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As well as that of Santa Rosa de Lima, other photographs displayed on social media by the Government itself within its communications apparatus, made it clear that the two vignettes (green and white mentioned), with the same information on flights and origins, were present. in other boxes delivered with vaccines by COVID-19 in other localities, like Zacatecoluca, San Vicente, Hospital Rosales and San Miguel.
The first is a green vignette, which indicates that this box was part of 98 in a shipment that left on January 31, from Mumbai (India) via Air France plane, then through Charles Airport de Gaulles from France on February 1 and arrive in Miami that same day, according to the site for registration of cargo afklcargo.com, which reports official information on international flights.
The other track is in the white vignette, number 406-0229 9253 as revealed by the image captured in Santa Rosa de Lima, which is from a shipment from the company UPS, which arrived from Miami to El Salvador last Feb. 3, 10:17 p.m. This is registered in the digital system of this shipping company.
Vaccines arrived in El Salvador on Feb. 3, according to airline tracking
The AirFrance report indicates that the shipment was of specialized vaccines and drugs, consisting of 98 pieces equivalent to 2,467 pounds in weight. UPS also indicates that there were 98 boxes.
Today’s Journal crossed this information with that of other Covishield vaccine boxes distributed in other countries by India, where each box contains 1,200 vials. You can get 10 doses of vaccine from each vial. Therefore, 1,176,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine would have been included in this shipment.
The Government’s explanation
The official information is that all 20,000 doses received on February 17 came from a flight from Mumbai, India, from the Spanish company Iberia.
The journalistic finding provoked a series of negative comments against the Government’s work on social media, which in turn provoked a quick reaction from President Nayib Bukele, alleging that the Indian embassy, the airline Iberia, AstraZeneca and PAHO support their version, that the 20,000 doses advertised on February 17 were the first and only to have entered the country.
Bukele confirmed that a batch of vaccines entered on February 3, but that they were not for COVID-19. However, the Government recycled the boxes of these vaccines.
Later, at 11:28 a.m. Thursday, President Bukele posted a tweet, in which he confirmed that there were vaccines that entered the country on February 3, but argued that there were no immunizations against COVID- 19, but vaccines against mumps, measles, and rubella.
He explained that the Serum Institute of India is a regular provider of Salvadoran government, and that “the boxes are recycled and used to protect smaller boxes,” which he explained according to the president because he dealt with one of these boxes to mobilize COVID-19 vaccines.
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In the photo released by the Press Office of Santa Rosa de Lima, the box has a sticker detailing that vaccines should be kept at a temperature between +2 to +8 degrees Celsius, a temperature required for the AstraZeneca for COVID-19, although it is also a standard temperature that is applied to other types of drugs.
At around 1:30 pm, the office of the Pan American Health Organization in El Salvador (PAHO) issued a statement on its website about the photograph “of a thermal box of vaccines that went arrived in the country on February 3 “.
PAHO detailed that “the image with a thermal box circulating on social media, corresponds to 100,000 doses of the Vaccine, Rubella and Mumps Vaccine (MMR) of the Regular Country Vaccine Program, manufactured by‘ Serum Institute of India ‘, which entered on 3 February this year and was acquired through the PAHO / WHO Revolving Fund, “PAHO reported.
In addition, the organization has noted that a thermal box works for the transfer of vaccines from one place to another, ensuring the right temperature conditions.
However, he did not include in his statement whether he endorses or certifies the recycling of the same boxes to transport other vaccines, as has happened in this case.