Lima, Peru – With the world’s highest reported coronavirus death toll per capita and a third wave expected to start washing over the country later this month, Peru’s COVID-19 vaccination programme could hardly be more critical.
And as the inoculation effort of outgoing interim President Francisco Sagasti picks up steam, the government has recommended that apparent incoming President Pedro Castillo avoid any disruptions by keeping on the health ministry officials overseeing it.
“It would give a lot of tranquility,” said Camille Webb, an infectious diseases expert at Lima’s Alexander von Humboldt Institute of Tropical Medicine. “It would be the most prudent thing and also the politically most intelligent.”
Yet with less than two weeks until his expected inauguration on July 28, and more than three months since the first round of Peru’s presidential elections, Castillo’s vaccination strategy remains a mystery – as do his policies on just about everything else, from the economy to education.
