Panama Approves Emergency Use of Vaccine as Covid Cases and Deaths Rise
The Panamanian Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported 1,028,272 cumulative cases of covid-19 and 8,589 deaths in more than two years of the pandemic on Monday. The health entity also said 1,025 new cases and 5 deaths were registered between Sunday 8 and Saturday 14 January.
Last Saturday, there were 4 patients admitted to the Intensive Care Units (ICU) and 82 in the ward, while 1,452 were isolated at home. Moreover, 18,498 tests were applied between 8 and 14 January resulting in 5.5% positivity.
The patients who have healed since March 2020 stand at 1,018,145. Moreover, 8,710,245 doses of Pfizer vaccine have been administered to children under 11 years of age (495,282 pediatric doses) and individuals between 6 months and 45 years of age (12,474 doses).
The health authorities have now approved the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine, the first batch of 75,600 doses of which arrived on January 11. These will be applied to the population aged 12 and above who have already taken at least 2 doses of the monovalent immunization.
