First Pfizer vaccines arrive in the Dominican Republic and the Government announces the start of vaccination of young people over 12 years of age

(CNN Spanish) – The Dominican Republic received the first batch of vaccines from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer-BioNTech on Friday afternoon.

The Vice President of the Republic, Raquel Peña, reported that this first shipment was 228,150 doses of the nearly 10 million doses contracted with the US pharmaceutical company.

Peña indicated that this batch of Pfizer will begin to vaccinate young people over 12 years old as of this Saturday.

For his part, the charge d’affaires of the United States embassy in the Caribbean country, Robert Thomas, highlighted that the vaccines from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer arrive to continue fighting the coronavirus in the country and congratulated the Dominican Government for the efforts made in that sense.

This is the twelfth batch of vaccines received by the Caribbean country where more than 91 of the vaccines received to date, some 6,268,000 doses are from the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac.

The Dominican Republic remains mired in a third wave since mid-May, which has hit Greater Santo Domingo hard, which includes the National District and the province.

According to data from the National Health Service, in Santo Domingo province 97% of public sector intensive care units were occupied this Friday and 88% of respirators were in use.

This Friday, the Ministry of Public Health registered a total of 306,698 infections and 3,700 deaths related to the disease.

The Government’s Vaccination Plan is advancing in the Caribbean country and, according to official data, as of June 10, more than 6 million have been applied and 1,827,556 million people are fully vaccinated.