Bolivian President Arce gets COVID vaccine

Bolivian President Luis Arce was given the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus on Monday as the country fights a third wave of the virus outbreak.

Arce said he wanted to send a message to the population to go to vaccination centers, some of which looked empty.

The inoculation campaign is running with delays, according to experts.

Bolivia has so far vaccinated 1.3 million people with one and two doses of the Sputnik, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sinopharm vaccines.

The Ministry of Health expects to vaccinate 7.5 million people.

The third wave has led to the saturation of hospitals and their intensive care units. The families of the sick and doctors are complaining of lack of medicines.

Bolivia has also reported various COVID-19 variants.

The increase of cases have prompted the government over the weekend to put in place rigid quarantine in four of the nine regions of the country.

Bolivia has registered 349,653 cases and 13,857 deaths, according to official figures.