Xinhua 2022:02:14.10:13
LIMA, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) — Peru is getting ready for children to return to face-to-face classes at the end of next March, for which the municipality of the city of Lima has launched a free health care campaign that seeks to guarantee that children from 5 to 15 years of age start the school year in a protected manner.
The “Let’s go back to school happy and safe” campaign, which began on February 7, will last until the first days of March and includes vaccination once morest the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), due to the fact that the third wave of infections raised cases in minors.
The manager of Education and Sports of the municipality of Lima, Christopher Zecevich, explained to Xinhua that for now the action is carried out in the Republic of Argentina and Virgo Potens schools in the capital, although the objective is to cover 86 schools and exceed 30,000 children. vaccinated locally.
“We want the return to be safe, right?” Zecevich asked, adding that part of it is going through a medical check-up before classes start.
Among the services offered free of charge are medical consultations, identification of anemia, psychological counseling, growth control, nutrition, dentistry, visual tests and influenza injection.
Zecevich commented that children “are the future” of Peru, so it is very important that regional authorities give these options to both minors and parents.
“I must emphasize that this is free. Boys and girls from other districts can come here, it is not only focused on children from the Cercado de Lima. We are attending from nine in the morning until three in the followingnoon from Monday to Saturday,” he commented. capital official.
In the Peruvian capital, more than 12,000 minors have been vaccinated once morest COVID-19, with which the capital administration has joined the effort of the country’s Ministry of Health (Minsa).
The Peruvian government began on January 24 to vaccinate children between the ages of five and 11 once morest the new coronavirus so that they have immunization when they return to face-to-face classes, paralyzed for two years following the start of the pandemic.
The goal is to immunize 4,236,070 minors in this range, among them to date 1,197,787 have received the first dose, equivalent to 28.51 percent.
The Vice Minister of Public Health of the Minsa, Gustavo Rosell, declared on Saturday that although the return to classes is “independent of vaccination”, they hope to arrive with 80 percent of minors between the ages of five and 17 with immunization, “so that they can start primary and secondary school with less risk.
The nation, which has been facing a third wave of infections since the beginning of January, has entered a “decline” phase, while the authorities place their trust in the vaccination campaign once morest COVID-19, through which they have applied 59.34 million injections.
The government goal is to fully immunize 32,781,250 people in the country, of which 81.83 percent have received the first dose, 71.59 percent the second and 27.61 the third dose.
As of Saturday, Peru reached 3,435,753 confirmed cases and 208,120 people who have died from the disease since the start of the pandemic in the South American country, according to the latest Minsa report.
(Web editor: Zhou Yu, Zhao Jian)