Ecuador: Third Health Minister Resigns in Less Than a Month

The COVID-19 crisis and the irregular vaccination scandal in Ecuador have claimed another Health Minister's post in the Andean country after Rodolfo Farfán suddenly resigned from his position on Friday.

Although the resigning official said that his resignation is due to "strictly personal reasons," it comes just hours after a list of people vaccinated against COVID-19 in a privileged way, including businessmen and senior government officials, was disclosed in the middle of an investigation by the Attorney General's Office on the matter.

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On Friday morning, local media reported that since last January, when the vaccination against COVID-19 started in the country, with just over 8,000 doses, which were intended mainly for health personnel, the wife of President Lenín Moreno, Rocío González; the Minister of Defense, Oswaldo Jarrín; the president's advisor, Liz Giler; as well as Fredy Miño, the person in charge of helping the dignitary with the wheelchair, were vaccinated.

In the list, some journalists, businessmen, and ex-officials of the country also appear, which was revealed, in addition, a week before a "VIP" vaccination day for 560 people of the Rotary Club, in the exclusive area of the city of Samborondón, in the province of Guayas.

Similarly, last week there was also a scandal after it became known that two high-profile "tiktokers," identified as Salomon Yasih Doumet Mendoza and Maria del Alma Cruz Pareja, were also included in the vaccination process at the Teodoro Maldonado Carbo Hospital in Guayaquil.

"I tender my resignation as Minister of @Salud_Ec."

Before all these scandals, there were others, which led to the resignation of the former Minister of Health, Juan Carlos Zevallos, last February 26, who one day after his resignation left the country on a flight to Miami, in the United States.

At that time, there were accusations against Zevallos for authorizing vaccinations in January, when just a handful of vaccines against the coronavirus had arrived in the country, at the private Geriatric Center of the Hospital de Los Valles, one of the most exclusive health centers and residence for the elderly in the country, where he has "several relatives," as admitted by the ex-minister himself. 

According to information from the MSP, 293,430 doses of vaccines against COVID-19 have arrived in Ecuador; however, according to the data provided with the arrival of each shipment, the amount is 313,380, of which 20,000 were donated by Chile and are CoronaVac, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac; 84,000 are from the Covax Facility initiative, led by the World Health Organization; and the remaining 209,380 are from Pfizer.