The Dominican State has invested around RD$40,000 million in supplies, vaccines, and medicines, to face and mitigate the effects of covid-19 since the pandemic was detected in the country on March 1, 2023. This, without counting donations and other attached budgets.
This was reported by the Minister of Public Health and Social Assistance (Mispas), Daniel Rivera, who considers that the experience that the Dominican Republic has had with covid-19 places it in a position to face not only pandemics, but also large-scale natural phenomena. .
He argued that the “National Plan 2030” already contemplates medical warehouses in each region of the country, which will be equipped with medical supplies. Likewise, the strategic structures and policies will be outlined in that agenda for upcoming events, which will be ready as of April of this year.
“During the pandemic we had to borrow warehouses, which made vaccination logistics a bit difficult. Experience already tells us that there should be department stores in the three regions of the Dominican territory, regardless of the capital. There can be no disconnection in those moments of crisis”, he expressed.
Rivera pointed out that they will establish the number of beds, the places available to house people and the blood units that will be available, as well as the technical, medical, military and volunteer personnel to face new pandemic events or catastrophes.
From the first victim of Sars-Cov-2 in March 2020, to the last death registered in August 2022, the country reports a total of 4,384 deaths from this virus, indicating a “very low” fatality rate of 0.6. %, which does not represent that great danger as in critical moments of the pandemic.
However, the number of infections has increased, since the data indicates around 40,296 confirmed cases, going from 620,237 in July 2022 to 660,533 in February 2023. Given this, Minister Rivera maintains that the covid will be in the country as one more disease or as any other viral process, so they will continue with the vaccines, especially in children.
“There is a child population that has not been vaccinated, so we will soon be announcing a Pfizer (for children) from five to 11 years old. Also, many babies are born without the necessary antibodies, for this we will have a special one. Also, there are people who need reinforcement in their system. Because of this, we will continue with the vaccines,” said the internist.
The official said that they will buy the ambivalent vaccines from the large laboratories, but that the others are still available from both Sinovac and Pfizer, used to inoculate citizens every day, numbers that register an average of 12,000 individuals weekly.
At the end of February this year, 6.8 million deaths from this virus were reported globally. Likewise, around 681.1 million people infected, about 635.1 million recovered and 9,772 who remained in critical condition.
The country with the highest number of deaths from covid-19 is registered by the United States with 1.4 million, followed by Brazil, reporting 699,230 deaths and followed by India, with 530,772 deaths. Russia and Mexico with 396,216 and 333,038, respectively, make up the five countries with the most deaths from the virus in the first week of March.