Peru vaccine scandal: Ex-president asked for early jab, doctors say

Former Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra requested and received an early vaccination against Covid-19 out of turn, a doctor has told lawmakers.

Mr Vizcarra has said he and his wife were vaccinated as clinical trial volunteers in October last year.

But testifying in parliament on Tuesday, Dr Germán Málaga, who led the vaccine trial, disputed this.

"He asked me for two vaccines," Dr Málaga, of the Cayetano Heredia University in the capital Lima, said.

Mr Vizcarra was impeached and removed as president by parliament over separate corruption allegations in November last year.

Now a newspaper report about his early inoculation has embroiled the former president and other government officials in another political scandal.

On Monday, Peru's current President, Francisco Sagasti, said 487 people had been "irregularly" vaccinated with doses of a jab made by Chinese firm Sinopharm.

Mr Sagasti said these people, including many public officials, "took advantage of their position to be immunised with the Sinopharm vaccines that came in addition to those used in clinical trials".

Mr Sagasti's revelations came days after a newspaper report revealed Mr Vizcarra, 57, and his wife, Maribel Díaz Cabello, 50, had received early doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.

Mr Vizcarra has confirmed the report, admitting he and two family members had received vaccines in October last year.

On Tuesday, Dr Málaga told Peru's Congress that Mr Vizcarra had approached him about being vaccinated on 1 October, when the drug was being rolled out to 12,000 trial volunteers.

Mr Vizcarra knew he would be getting the real jab, not a placebo, Dr Málaga said. Volunteers in blind trials do not know which of the two they will receive.

The doctor said he did not believe he was acting irregularly, because he thought the president needed protection for leading the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I did not think about legal, political or calculations," he said.

The scandal has led to the resignations of the country's health and foreign ministers, as well as two vice ministers involved in efforts to control the virus.

The early vaccinations of ministers have stirred anger in Peru, which only began its immunisation drive, starting with healthcare workers, in early February.

Peru has recorded more than 1.2 million cases of coronavirus, with 43,880 deaths related to Covid-19, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.