This Saturday, May 22, 204,000 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 from AstraZeneca arrived in Panama.

This is the first shipment of vaccines that the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca makes to Panama through bilateral negotiation, as part of the continuous vaccination strategy contemplated in Operation PanavaC-19.

Of this total vaccine dose, half will be used to be administered and it is expected that the other half will be stored to guarantee the second dose per month; They must be distributed throughout the country, as announced by the President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo.

This new batch of AstraZeneca vaccines, which was received by Thays Noriega, Director of International Affairs and Technical Cooperation of the Ministry of Health (Minsa), and as a guest the Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Damion Andrew Potter, Panama will continue to strengthen its strategy and the scheme of Operation PanavaC-19 at the national level, taking into account that next week vaccination with AstraZeneca will begin in various parts of the country.

"We are very happy to receive this first load from AstraZeneca as part of the bilateral agreement in the purchase of vaccines, it will reinforce all the programming that the National Government has through PanavaC-19, there are 204 thousand doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine negotiated bilaterally, the first largest shipment we have received," said Noriega.

It is reiterated to men over 30 and women over 50 who are interested in applying this vaccine against COVID-19, they must register on the web portal https://astrazeneca.fluyapp.com/, and complete their information. Once the appointment dates are available, you can verify the day, time and place of vaccination through https://vacunas.panamasolidario.gob.pa/verificate/.

It is worth mentioning that Panama received, through the Covax mechanism, a first batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine on April 16, of about 36 thousand doses, which have been applied to volunteers in Vaccination 20-30 installed in the Rommel Stadium premises Fernandez. While the second batch, with 74,400 doses, arrived on May 11.

The health authorities enabled other rapid vaccination centers to apply AstraZeneca to the volunteers, in the provinces of Chiriquí, Los Santos and Herrera, Veraguas, Coclé and the province of Colón.