Colombia reaches agreements to buy 40mln COVID-19 vaccine doses

Bogota, Dec 19 (Agency) Colombia has signed agreements with the Pfizer and AstraZeneca companies to buy 10 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine from each of them, as well as will get 20 million more doses via the COVAX mechanism, President Ivan Duque said.
“We have reached an agreement with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to buy 10 million doses and the AstraZeneca firm to purchase 10 million doses. 20 million doses will also be purchased via the COVAX platform,” Duque said on late Friday. The president has not specified the dates of the vaccines’ deliveries but stressed that the vaccination campaign will be launched in the first weeks of 2021. The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 75.5 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.6 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Colombia has recorded more than 1.4 million coronavirus cases so far, with over 40,000 fatalities, JHU adds.