Colombians between the ages of 12 and 17 can now receive the third dose of Pfizer: MinSalud

On the morning of this Friday, March 25, the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz Gómez, announced that the Government gave the green light for the country to apply a third dose of Pfizer's vaccine against covid-19 to Colombians between 12 and 17 years of age.

This was announced by the head of portfolio from the unified command post in the city of Cartagena, where he also gave a reflective message on the importance of immunizing against the coronavirus in full economic recovery.

“Today we announced the expansion of the booster vaccine to the population aged 12 to 17 with Pfizer biologics, which will allow us to strengthen protection and immunity in adolescents,” Minister Ruiz announced.

It should be clarified that such determination will take place after the last dose has reached four months after its date of application.

In the same vein, MinSalud also highlighted progress in the application of vaccines throughout Colombia. “We completed the 80 million doses of vaccines applied, exceeding 82% of the population with immunized with at least one dose, and reached 10 million booster vaccines supplied in the country,” the official said.

However, Ruiz warned that, although they have all the necessary biologics for citizens, they showed “a decrease in the speed of vaccine application in the country, which should lead us to intensify efforts and be rigorous with the reporting of vaccinated by the territories,” he urged, in turn asking the mayors and governorates that “carry out the exercise of vaccines in the collection centers, report those that have been applied, in order to be clear where vaccines are not applied,” added the head of the Health portfolio.

Regarding the positivity of coronavirus cases in the country, as well as the occupancy of beds in intensive care units, Fernando Ruiz explained what state the country is in and stressed that, thanks to the application of biological ones, deaths from the virus have been significantly reduced.

Moreover, the government official of Iván Duque referred to the measure to eliminate the mask in open spaces and said that “it has not had a negative impact on community transmission and has not affected this final phase of descent by the omicron wave,” Ruiz said.

However, he reminded Colombians that they must “continue with measures within enclosed spaces” such as mass transportation, churches, banks, classrooms and other places where, according to medical science, there is a greater risk of contagion of covid-19.

For his part, the Deputy Minister of Public Health and Service Delivery of MinSalud, Germán Escobar, also referred to the advances in immunization and announced the coverage they have achieved since the start of the National Immunization Plan in February 2021.

“Vaccination coverage continues to increase. For the first time in almost three weeks, we reached nearly 300,000 doses applied a day, which shows us that the country can continue to increase its rate of vaccination,” Escobar said at the same event.

It should be recalled that this Wednesday, March 23, 80,224,223 doses were reported after applying 291,561 and exceeded 10 million reinforcements with 10,036,870 applied, according to the MinSalud daily report.

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