Order ignored: Minister resigns for premature vaccination

Monday, February 15, 2021

Order ignored
Minister resigns due to premature vaccination

The vaccination campaign against the corona virus has been running in Peru since last week. Now it comes out: In addition to ex-President Vizcarra and his wife, the current foreign minister also received a secret vaccination in advance. The politician apologizes for her mistake and takes her hat.

After anger about premature corona vaccinations for politicians in Peru, the foreign minister of the transitional government resigned. The minister, Elizabeth Astete, announced on Sunday (local time) that she received a first dose of the vaccine from the Chinese company Sinopharm on January 22nd. She was offered this after she had contact with several people who tested positive for the coronavirus. Reactions to the revelation that former President Martín Vizcarra and his wife had been vaccinated showed that she had made a serious mistake, the 68-year-old said. She therefore decided not to have the second injection.

In the past few days, it had emerged that Vizcarra, who was deposed by parliament in November on charges of bribery, and his wife had been vaccinated against the virus in October. He stated that they were volunteers in a clinical trial of the Sinopharm vaccine, which the responsible university in Lima denied. Since then, pressure has increased on other politicians in the South American country to explain whether they have already been vaccinated.

Peru's vaccination campaign started last Tuesday. In the first phase, health workers, members of the security forces and interim president Francisco Sagasti will be vaccinated – but not other members of the government. People aged at least 60 years should have their turn in the second phase. The Andean country with a good 30 million inhabitants has so far registered around 43,700 deaths in connection with Covid 19 disease – one of the world's highest death rates per inhabitant in the pandemic.