Coronavirus: The mandatory vaccination card is suspended in Bolivia due to the collapse of the system

The obligation in Bolivia to carry a vaccination card against covid-19 As of the beginning of this year, the demand for immunizers soared and health centers collapsed, so the government decided to temporarily suspend the use of the document from this Thursday.

Health centers throughout the country showed, since the application for the identity card entered into force vaccination January 1 through Wednesday, a huge crowd of people.

The La Paz mayor’s office said this Thursday in a statement that “The request for vaccination in three municipal hospitals in one week ”.

The daily average in each hospital was between 70 and 300 before the request was triggered, the local government said.

The municipal secretary of Health of the city of Cochabamba (center), Aníbal Cruz, told AFP that “An avalanche of people came that collapsed the vaccination system.”

He explained that since the beginning of the month, 10,000 people a day have been immunized in the city of Cochabamba, the fourth most populated in the country, which promised encouraging goals.

However, citizen pressure for vaccines overwhelmed the health centers’ care capacity and this forced the Executive branch to suspend the request for the document of vaccination from this Thursday until next January 26.

The Ministry of Health, in a statement, explained that the measure will allow “to improve the vaccination and adapt them with better biosafety measures to avoid crowds ”.

This Thursday the points of vaccination showed a decrease in people.

The mayor of La Paz, the opponent Iván Arias, criticized the executive branch. “The vaccination instead of going backwards in the requirement of the card anticovid“, He said.

Cruz, the Secretary of Health of Cochabamba, also regretted the measure to suspend the requirement of the immunization document, which was a requirement to carry out procedures in banks, in public and private offices and for land and air travel.

Bolivia, of almost 12 million people, vaccinated more than 3.7 million people with two doses of Sinopharm, AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Sputnik V and with a single injection of Johnson & Johnson more than 992,000 people.

To date, there are 641,817 infections and 19,848 deaths from covid and is going through the peak of a fourth wave.

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