QUITO – Ecuador’s health minister, Juan Carlos Zevallos, resigned yesterday in the latest scandal to hit a South American government over well-connected citizens jumping the queue for coronavirus vaccines.
Zevallos has admitted that his mother, 87, and “several” others close to him received a shot among the 42,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine the country has reserved for workers in healthcare and old-age homes.
Announcing the resignation on Twitter, President Lenin Moreno thanked his ex-minister for the work done during the pandemic that he said “helped save hundreds of thousands of lives”.
Zevallos, now under investigation, occupied the Health Ministry for 11 months.
He said he decided to quit “given the current political situation, and in order to allow continuity” of the vaccination campaign that began last month.
Peru and Argentina, too, have been hit by outcries over the rich and powerful getting their coronavirus jabs out of turn.
In all three countries, academics, politicians, journalists and sports personalities are among those alleged to have jumped the queue.
Moreno insisted on Twitter that none of his family or friends has received the jab.
Ecuador, a country of some 17.4 million people, has had more than 15,000 Covid-19 deaths out of some 281,000 infections.
The outgoing government said it has negotiated to acquire 20 million vaccine doses. – AFP, February 27, 2021
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