A nurse talks to a group of patients about the covid vaccine, in a hospital in Medellín, on Wednesday Luis Eduardo Noriega A. / EFE
At least 1,241 people in Colombia have been vaccinated irregularly, according to an alert from the National Comptroller's Office that this Thursday revealed its findings on the inoculation process in the country.
While there are still people over 70 years old waiting for a call to receive the first dose, more than a thousand Colombians, at least 189 between the ages of 18 and 25, were vaccinated without meeting the requirements: “They are not part of the prioritized group, no They are over 60 years old, they do not work in the health sector, ”says the Comptroller's Office.
The entity, which follows in real time the results of the national vaccination plan in search of irregularities, has also discovered that 20 names of people who appear as vaccinated correspond to deceased.
The Comptroller's Office also found that at least 59 people were vaccinated two or three times in less than ten days.
Colombia has not faced, until now, a scandal in the supply of vaccines such as those that have shaken Peru or Chile, where the irregularities have had political implications that have reached the presidency, but the national Comptroller's Office warns that in several regions from the country are skipping the line to be immunized and the local authorities have done nothing to prevent it.
In Valle del Cauca, for example, almost 500 people have managed to receive the dose without it being due.
It is the area where more irregularities have occurred, according to the Comptroller's Office.
The entity's report also indicates that there are suspicious records of people who had to be vaccinated in one city and did so in another.
Inhabitants of Antioquia have received the doses in the Amazon, one of the regions where vaccines are scarce for its inhabitants, the majority indigenous population.
The Government has not ruled, until now, on the irregularities found by the Comptroller's Office, which are added to other complaints that indicate a poor distribution of the doses in the country where until this Thursday a little more than 2.6 million people they had received the vaccine.
Colombia, to meet its immunization goal, should be applying more than 200,000 daily doses, but it barely reaches 100,000.
As of this Thursday, 64,767 people have died in the country from coronavirus and daily positive cases exceed 10,000.
In March, the Superintendency of Health reported that only in Bogotá, the capital, 395 people were vaccinated without complying with the requirements.
“Let's not use shortcuts or skip the line.
Please respect the criteria and the deadlines that are already defined, ”Fabio Aristizabal, from the Superintendency, said a few weeks ago.
However, their call has not been heeded and not all who should be receiving the vaccine.
The fight against corruption is a front against the coronavirus that Colombia is not addressing.
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