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Quito, Feb 26 (IANS) Ecuador will receive two million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac for mass vaccination against Covid-19, after negotiations were finalized on Thursday, Ecuadoran Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos said.
"Sinovac is being incorporated ... Just this morning we received the approval with all the seals and legal approvals from the Chinese government and the company," Zevallos told a press conference, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.
This "is very important because it will allow us to quickly reach the required percentages and help us tremendously to cover a higher percentage of the population," the minister said.
Of the two million doses, one million will arrive in March and the remaining in April, he said.
The nation has now secured 20 million doses of vaccines from vaccine manufacturers, the minister said. In addition to the two million CoronaVac doses, the country will receive six million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, five million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine and seven million doses from the COVAX Facility Initiative led by the World Health Organization.
Ecuador's pilot vaccination program, which kicked off on January 21, has so far inoculated health personnel in 55 hospitals and seniors in 19 nursing homes. The government's goal is to start mass vaccination of 60 per cent of the population, or nine million people, in March.
--IANS
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