The Ministry of Health (Minsa), controlled by the Daniel Ortega regime, inflated the national vaccination figures against covid-19 by adding as first and second doses, the boosters and the vaccines applied in the “2022 vaccination scheme”. Thus, the Minsa would apparently have vaccinated 70% of Nicaraguans. The Caribbean and rural population does not even reach 50% of immunized.
According to the latest Minsa report shared with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), until May 5, 2022, they applied 10,404,774 doses, of these 5.7 million are first doses and 4.9 million second. Among the statistics there is no detail of how many are the third booster doses that have been applied since November 2021.
There is also no segregation of how many vaccines are part of the “new 2022 scheme” started last March, with which Nicaragua became -without evidence or scientific studies- the first country in the world to apply anticovid vaccines to its population every year. With this decision, before the end of the first semester of 2022, a part of the population will have accumulated up to five vaccines against covid applied in a period of less than 15 months.
“Mario”, a 68-year-old man from Managua, is one of these. He was vaccinated for the first time against covid-19 in July 2021. At that time he received the first dose of Sputnik V and in September he completed the schedule with his second vaccine. In January 2022, the MINSA brigade members told him that he should get a third booster dose with Sputnik Light and he did so.
However, last April, Minsa staff told “Mario” that he could start the new vaccination schedule, but this time with Pfizer. Therefore, at the end of May, the second dose must be given to complete the scheme and then you will have accumulated five vaccines against covid in a period of ten months and will add to the statistics as a new person who completes your scheme, even if you do it for second time.
In this new scheme, the Minsa is applying doses of Sputnik Light and Pfizer. Until recently, the latter was intended exclusively for pregnant and postpartum women, but the new orientation is to apply it to the entire population over 12 years of age.
Only Nicaragua does not provide reinforcement data
The epidemiologist, Leonel Argüello, explains that there is no reason to vaccinate the population again as if it were the first time because the body has memory. “That is not correct, first of all because the defense system cannot be overstimulated and secondly because the vaccination that has been carried out has to be taken into account.”
In Central America, Nicaragua is the only country that does not report the number of booster doses applied. Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala are already applying fourth doses, and there is clear data on how many vaccines have been applied.
“Everything that is the information in Nicaragua is not well managed and that does not really benefit anyone on the contrary, it creates false security, it creates coverage that is not correct because if it works well, the coverage has to be released by groups of ages and vaccination coverage is also determined by territory”, explains Dr. Argüello.
According to PAHO, the countries with the highest percentage of vaccinated population are Costa Rica, which has already immunized 79.9% of its inhabitants, and Panama, which accumulates 70.3%. In these statistics, Nicaragua follows.
The country that has not managed to vaccinate even 40% of its population is Guatemala. According to PAHO, of the 18.2 million inhabitants, only 6.1 million completed their scheme. Even with these figures, the Ortega regime has tried to confuse the population.
Last February, Vice President Rosario Murillo celebrated in her daily monologues that after Guatemala, our country was the second that more people had been vaccinated. However, this comparison is wrong because Nicaragua has three times less population and the international recommendation to compare is to do it with the rates per inhabitant.
“To date, the information from the Minsa has been of dubious reputation, the same international organizations say it, there is no point in corrupting the health information system because it is essential, so that it tells you the reality, but at a certain moment or know the reality yourself”, laments the doctor.
Doctors from public hospitals entrusted CONFIDENTIAL that the Health personnel assigned to vaccination work long and poorly paid days to add more vaccinated people. And although the official discourse is of “voluntary vaccination”, in health centers and hospitals they request the vaccination card against covid-19 as a requirement to receive medical care.
Caribbean Coast remains stagnant in vaccination
The latest update on Silais vaccination that is known in Nicaragua covers until March 22, 2022. According to these data, the autonomous regions of the North and South Caribbean, the poorest in Nicaragua, remain stagnant.
In this region, the population vaccinated with the complete schedule —two or three doses— varies between 25.03% and 46.94%. a month ago when CONFIDENTIAL analyzed the statistics published for the first time in the Health Map, the percentage was 21 and 45%, this indicates that there was a slight increase; while other populations with greater access to Health were vaccinated for the fourth time.
The Minsa assures that in the “Silais – Bilwi”, which includes the municipalities of Bilwi, Waspam and Prinzapolka, located in the North Caribbean, they have only managed to vaccinate 53,985 people of the 236,466 who live there.
In the “Silais – RACCS” made up of the municipalities of La Cruz de Río Grande, El Tortuguero, Kukra Hill, Bluefields, Laguna de Perlas, the mouth of the Río Grande and Corn Island, located in the South Caribbean, they have completed their scheme 86 622 people out of 202,294.
Meanwhile, in the “Silais -Las Minas”, made up of the municipalities of Bonanza, Rosita, Siuna, Mulukukú and Paiwas, 117,783 people out of 266,219 have been vaccinated with two doses. And in the “Silais – Central Zelaya”, which includes the municipalities of Nueva Guinea, El Rama, Muelles de los Bueyes and El Coral, 90,027 of 171,115 were inoculated with the complete scheme.
“The Caribbean has always been the most abandoned place in Nicaragua, it is the poorest place, a place where there is little population, so since vaccination began in Nicaragua I have always argued that the Caribbean should be a priority for a reason, very simple, these people live in conditions of greater risk than us and secondly in our indigenous population, they are very few compared to the mestizos who are the majority in the country, so we have to protect the minorities in our country, “says the doctor, who was national director of Immunizations, Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Minsa.
Even the “Silais -Managua”, which daily heads the headlines of the official media with vaccination brigades, only 994,131 of the 1.5 million inhabitants called to be vaccinated, completed their vaccination schedule.
