Peru signs deal to purchase 12 million additional doses of Pfizer vaccine

Reuters
Updated ·1 min read
FILE PHOTO: Injections with doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine are pictured in Berlin

LIMA (Reuters) -Peru President Francisco Sagasti announced on Wednesday a fresh deal with Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE to purchase an additional 12 million doses of their vaccine against COVID-19 as a fierce second wave of the virus ravages the country.

The president said on social media the additional shots would be delivered by year's end.

Peru's vaccination drive has been slow to get started and fraught with allegations of corruption, with just under 4% of the population inoculated with at least one dose to date, according to a Reuters tabulation.

See graphic for COVID-19 vaccination tracker: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/vaccination-rollout-and-access/

Peru had previously signed a contract with Pfizer to purchase 20 million doses, some of which has begun to arrive in the Andean nation.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino in LimaWriting by Dave SherwoodEditing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)