According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) planning, 321,600 AstraZeneca vaccines have been identified from the International COVAX Mechanism today. Although there was no live broadcast of the units’ arrival, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Aid (MSPAS) social media confirmed the arrival of the vaccinated.

“There are 321,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine that will benefit us as of tomorrow to continue vaccination at the national level in the stages we are currently in the plan,” explained the Minister of Health, Amelia Flores.

In the same way, the head of the bag indicated that the vaccinators will be distributed throughout the republic, and explained that all health areas are scheduled to receive vaccines between tomorrow and the weekend to be resupplied.

The PAHO website mentions the arrival of 321,600 vaccines from AstraZeneca. pic.twitter.com/clx62ClOAj

– La Hora newspaper (Lahoragt) June 3, 2021

It will be distributed between the first and second dose

Vaccines purchased by the Pan American Health Organization will be used to administer the first doses and administer the full schedule. “At the moment, we don’t need to complete the schedules because they were already finishing this week, June 7 or 8 with second doses for Phase 1. The ones we have now are for the first doses and to see how much we’re going to need for the second doses,” Flores added.

According to the minister, the stock of vaccines before this new batch was “very low”, noting that more than 70,000 doses are still available at the National Center for Medicines.

Similarly, the PAHO anti-COVAX monitoring portal in the Americas shows that a shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines has “arrived”. According to this site, with this third batch, Guatemala will add 724,800 units received.

This is the first phase of delivery of more than 700,000 vaccines provided by the Pan American Health Organization to Guatemala before the end of June. As indicated, delays in the arrival of some batches of vaccines are “out of the control of the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization” and are linked to inequality in access to existing vaccines worldwide.

The United States will donate vaccines to GT

Minister Flores announced that President Alejandro Giamatti had accepted a donation offer of 500,000 doses from AstraZeneca from the United States. The date of receipt of this donation is not yet known by the Chief of Health.

Implementation of freezers in Guatemala

Regarding the cold chain needed to protect vaccines, Amelia Flores replied that “both in the province of Guatemala and within the country, diagnosis has already been started to see which health areas are being prepared to give doses of vaccines that require freezing. We have received an important donation from freezers through A special initiative and we have purchased refrigerators at the central level and in each region.”