Vaccine roll-out starts in Colombia and Mexico while Brazil struggles shortage

Chief Nurse Veronica Luz Machado, who has been battling the coronavirus pandemic for months in an intensive care unit in the northern Colombian city of Sincelejo, became the first person in the Andes to receive a COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday. From Machado, Colombia will begin its plan to immunize 35.2 million people with vaccines obtained through a series of bilateral transactions and the COVAX mechanism supported by the World Health Organization.

"The pandemic changed our lives, especially for my colleagues and me, because we were exposed to an unfamiliar virus, and we did not know how to react," said Machado, who works at Hospital Universitario.

'It's a risk that health workers face every day when we leave our homes to come and work in what we enjoy, in which we are passionate. I was terrified, "added Machado, who has been a nurse for more than two decades. For Machado, the vaccine offers hope after nearly a year of coronavirus cases in Colombia, which reported more than 2.2 million infections and 57,949 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The country has a population of about 50 million people.

'Today begins a new chapter in which this pandemic is defeated. This chapter starts with a mass, safe, effective, and free vaccination across the country, 'said President Ivan Duque, who attended Machado's first injection.

The first phase of vaccinations in Colombia will benefit health care workers and those aged 80 and over.

The government plans to immunize one million people during the first month of vaccinations, which he described as the most significant public health challenge in the country's history.

The first 50,000 doses of Pfizer arrived in Colombia on Monday. In comparison, the second group of 192,000 doses from China, Sinovac Biotech, is expected to arrive this weekend, Duque said in a message on Twitter earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Mexico, which has topped two million confirmed coronavirus cases and 175,000 deaths, has just begun vaccinating the elderly. Officials say about 189,000 doses were administered in the first two days of the campaign. There are about 15.7 million people older than 60 who need the shots.

So far, Mexico has received only about 1.9 million doses of Pfizer and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines, enough for about one million people in a country of 126 million.

Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Tuesday that Mexico would address the issue of unequal access to vaccines among countries on Wednesday.

Ebrard complained that countries that produce vaccines had much greater access to the shots than those that do not.

On Wednesday, Rio de Janeiro halted new vaccinations for a week due to a shortage of doses, one of a growing number of Brazilian cities that had little stock and demanded help from the federal government of Brazil.

City officials in Rio said they would continue to deliver second doses to those who had already been injected once but who had new shots waiting for the elderly.

Other state capitals had to adopt similar strategies, such as Salvador, in the northeastern state of Bahia, and Cuiaba, in Mato Grosso. According to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, looming shortages have also been reported in at least four other capitals.