Peru Receives 300,000 Doses of Chinese Sinopharm Vaccine

Peru on Sunday received on an Air France flight the first 300,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine produced by the Chinese Sinopharm laboratory.

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The shipment, which arrived at the Jorge Chavez International Airport at 19h54 in Callao province, was received by the Interim President Francisco Sagasti.

"The Shinopharm vaccines are part of the one million doses that the country plans to purchase from China in the coming days," Sagasti said, informing that the remaining 700,000 doses will arrive in Peru on Feb. 14.

"Getting the vaccine is the best shield of protection we have to take care of all Peruvians," he assured, recalling that his government is focused on containing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The announcement comes as Peru faces the pandemic's second wave, which has been collapsing its healthcare system since December. Hospitals are overflowing as the death toll is soaring.

Since March 2020, when the first case of COVID-19 was detected in Peru, over 105,000 people have died from the disease.

In Lima city, which concentrates 30 percent of the national population, nearly 9,000 people died in the first month of 2021. Before the pandemic, that number was equivalent to the deaths in the country in a whole year.