BUENOS AIRES, May 16. / TASS /: A batch of 400,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 jab has been delivered to Bolivia, the Telesur TV channel announced.
Bolivian President Luis Arce and Russian Ambassador Mikhail Ledenev took part in the ceremony of receiving the cargo at the Cochabamba international airport.
"We need to speed up vaccination in the country," Bolivia’s leader stated while receiving the drug. He urged citizens to get inoculated against COVID-19 and strictly follow sanitary safety measures. "We are fighting hard [against the pandemic] and we need [active] participation and commitment of the country’s residents to gradually tackle this issue," Arce said.
This vaccine batch will be distributed to different regions in line with the mass vaccination schedule. Some 125,000 doses are going to be sent to Santa Cruz, where the epidemiological situation is tense. According to local representatives, a new batch of Sputnik V will soon arrive in Bolivia, while the country will receive a total of 1.5 mln vaccine doses.
According to the Health Ministry, the third coronavirus wave has swept through Bolivia, while the COVID-19 spread rate soared. Thus, some restrictive measures are being introduced in a number of cities. Since the start of the pandemic, Bolivia, home to 11 mln people, has reported as many as 329,733 coronavirus cases, whereas 13,451 people have died from complications caused by the infection.
Last December, Bolivia’s leader announced that a contract for the purchase of Sputnik V had been signed. In January, the country received the first shipment.
