Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete resigned Sunday night after announcing she had received a dose of Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials and before the country began vaccination.
In a statement released on social media, Astete said she was in contact with several officials who tested positive for Covid-19 in December 2020 and January 2021, accepting an offer to take a dose of Sinopharm on January 22 vaccine. which according to her was ‘the remaining doses of the group held by Cayetano Heredia University’.
Astete, 68, underwent travel commitments for work and Covid-19 tests after being in contact with people who tested positive as factors influencing her decision to be vaccinated in January.
In a statement, Astete said:
Due to the recent announcement about the vaccination of (former) President Vizcarra and his wife, as well as the understandable impact this news has had on public opinion, I am aware of the serious mistake I have made, and therefore I decided not to receive the second dose. ‘
“I have submitted my resignation from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs to the President of the Republic.”
Astete’s resignation comes after local media reported last week that former president Martin Vizcarra and his wife, Maribel Diaz Cabello, were vaccinated while in office in October last year and did not disclose this information to the public.
On Thursday, Vizcarra said he presented as one of the 12,000 people as part of the Sinopharm vaccine trials.
But on Saturday, Cayetano Heredia University (UCH) – the leading university in charge of the trial – issued a statement explaining that Vizcarra and his wife were not part of the vaccination study that began in September.
Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti accepted Astete’s resignation on Sunday night, saying on Twitter that the health minister had ordered an investigation into senior officials to get doses of the vaccine.
“With the transparency and steadfastness that characterizes our government, we will publish the results of the investigation and the information provided by Cayetano Heredia University’s Center for Clinical Studies,” Sagasti said.
Sagasti also thanked the resignation of Health Minister Luis Suárez Ognio after local media reported that he had also been vaccinated.
Sagasti, who spoke to the local radio RPP on Sunday night, expressed his indignation at the scandal, saying that the doses used to vaccinate government officials were donated by Synopharm – and not part of the group used for the trials led by UCH.
On February 9, Peru became the first Latin American country to distribute China’s Sinopharm vaccine. Although other agreements with Pfizer / BioNTech and Oxford / Astrazeneca have been finalized, China’s Sinopharm vaccine is the only Covid-19 vaccine currently distributed in the country.