Austria will donate 50,000 Covid-19 vaccines to Costa Rica, the government announced Wednesday.
The news came after President Carlos Alvarado met with his counterpart, Alexander Van Der Belle, while both are at the United Nations in New York.
“We are grateful to Austria for this donation which will reinforce the intense work being done to accelerate vaccination throughout the country,” said President Alvarado.
The AstraZeneca doses are anticipated to arrive “in the next few days.”
“This new contribution demonstrates the solidity of our bilateral relations with friendly countries,” President Alvarado said.
This will represent the fourth batch of Covid-19 vaccine donations received by Costa Rica. In July, the United States government gifted 500,000 Pfizer/BioNTech doses, a shipment which helped the country launch mass-vaccination campaigns and expand vaccine access to nearly all adults.
The governments of Canada (319,200) and Spain (69,600) have also donated vaccines.
Costa Rica has imported more than 6.2 million doses since December 2020. The majority (4.3 million) were purchased directly through Pfizer, with 775,200 received from a contract with AstraZeneca. Some 259,350 were delivered through COVAX, an initiative to promote global vaccine equity, while the remaining 891,900 correspond to donations.
The latest available data indicate Costa Rica has administered 5.2 million doses across 3.3 million people. More than 2 million people have received both doses. The country’s population is about 5.1 million people.
