The Bolivian government on January 13 said that it had signed a contract with the Serum Institute of India (SII) for the supply of 5 million doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Bolivia’s President Luis Arce said that with this deal signed with SII and another recent deal to buy 5.2 million Sputnik V vaccine doses from Russia, Bolivia now expects to be able to inoculate all of its vaccinable population. Both the AstraZeneca and the Sputnik V vaccines require two doses to be given, meaning they would be used to inoculate a total of 5.1 million people from Bolivia’s 11.51 million-strong population.
President Arce further said that the first million AstraZeneca doses would arrive in Bolivia in April. The first 6,000 Sputnik doses are expected to arrive at the end of January.
The landlocked South American country has also signed an agreement through the WHO-backed global COVAX initiative, as it seeks to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, to receive a further 3.6 million doses of a range of vaccines.
Bolivia has endured periods of political and social disruption as the contested elections in 2019 saw longtime president Evo Morales leave office. The country has struggled to secure bilateral vaccine supply deals.
This week, Bolivia also took delivery of 650,000 of a promised 1.6 million shipment of COVID-19 tests from South Korea. The nasal antigen tests will allow Bolivia to roll out widespread testing for the disease for the first time since the pandemic broke out, potentially resulting in a spike in reported infection numbers.