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SANTIAGO, March 1 (Reuters) - Chile plans to ramp up its
purchase of vaccines from China's Sinovac and hopes to sign a
deal shortly with Johnson & Johnson, the health minister
said on Monday, as the South American nation moves to strengthen
its widely lauded coronavirus vaccination campaign.
Chile has jumped ahead of the rest of Latin America and many
countries globally with its inoculation program. The country has
already inoculated 3.35 million of its 19 million citizens
against COVID-19, officials said on Monday.
Health Minister Enrique Paris said new talks with Sinovac
Biotech Ltd were progressing quickly and that Chile was
negotiating a "significant increase" atop the 10 million doses
the Chinese pharmaceutical company had already promised the
country.
Paris said officials were also discussing contract details
with U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson and seeking to firm up a date
for initial shipments.
"If Johnson & Johnson cannot move forward with (shipments)
... we will have to continue negotiating hard with other
companies," the minister said.
The country moved fast and early to lock down vaccines,
signing deals with U.S.-based Pfizer Inc,
British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca and Sinovac.
Paris said Chile would soon receive the first batch of
890,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the global
COVAX program.
Chilean Undersecretary for International Economic Relations
Rodrigo Yanez told foreign correspondents later that this year's
$200 million budget for vaccines would have to be expanded.
"Because of the amounts involved, the dose prices, we
believe it will be over or close to $300 million," he said.
There have been 20,660 COVID-19 deaths in Chile and more
than 825,000 cases.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing
by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)
