“We are starting this vaccination especially thinking on the elderly, but we can extend it to all those immunized with the second dose from February to July 2022,” he said in an interview with Bolivia TV.

The campaign will last until the end of the year and starting on that date the possibility of bringing this benefit to other groups not included in the aforementioned stage will be assessed, the Minister said.

“Thanks to collaboration and coordination with Argentina, we have obtained enough vaccines that will arrive in the coming weeks and that will allow us, starting this Monday, to apply the third dose to reinforce the people who received the second dose six months ago,” Auza stated.

A 13 percent increase in Covid-19 cases was registered last week, with a sustained rise in infections for the last eight weeks, which prompted the Government to reinforce vaccination and the distribution of medicines and equipment to take care of infected patients.

“Bolivia is in the middle of the fourth epidemiological wave, this is the eighth consecutive week that we have registered an increase in cases nationwide,” said the minister, and reported that 8,535,952 doses have been applied between the first, second, third and the single dose.

The campaign began in January and the vaccines being used are China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V, bought by the Government, as well as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Janssen, donated through the World Health Organization Covax mechanism.

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