Bolivia fails to fulfill 83,000 daily vaccine goal

Bolivia started its national vaccination program on January 29, using the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine. However, it has failed to fulfill its goal of administering 83,000 shots per day, as promised by immunization plan director Max Enríquez Nava.

Besides the vaccination inconsistencies, there are also reports of shortages and logistics failures in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest region and currently the country’s coronavirus hotspot. On March 2, the government had to send 47,000 extra doses to the province. Several local health workers have staged protests, demanding better work conditions.

Finding precise and updated information about the number of people vaccinated is also hard, and is not even provided by the Health Ministry. According to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 vaccine tracker, the country is currently at a level of 0.17 doses per 100,000 inhabitants, behind 11 Latin American countries. The 11.6-million-people country has more than 252,000 coronavirus cases and 11,706 deaths reported as of March 5.

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