Half a million doses, which Joe Biden’s government had already announced it would donate to the South American country, left the United States today.
The vaccines arriving in Uruguay are part of the 80 million doses that Biden has promised to donate to other countries to fight the pandemic around the world, one through the Covax system and another through direct distribution.
The shipment to Uruguay will coincide with Bolivia, Paraguay and Guatemala, which will receive 1 million single-dose vaccines from Johnson & Johnson, 1 million doses from Pfizer and 1.5 million doses from Moderna, respectively.
In recent days, Washington has given Brazil 3 million doses, Colombia 2.5 million, Ecuador and Peru 2 million, and Honduras 1.5 million doses.
Announcing the donation to Uruguay at the end of June, Jennifer Savage, business manager at the US Embassy in Montevideo, said that vaccines will help the country “get to a post-pandemic normalcy in the coming weeks and benefit recovery from an active tourist.” weather in the coming months”.
The United States, which at the beginning of the year stockpiled a large proportion of the world’s available vaccines and far exceeded them, is confronting this maneuver with the so-called vaccine diplomacy that Russia and China are experimenting with.
Uruguay, in turn, is one of the countries in the world with the highest percentage of the vaccinated population.
At least 65.8% of the population (2.3 million people) received a single dose, of which 53.1% (1.8 million) have already completed the vaccination programme.
