'Vaccine-Gate' Scandal: Over 400 Peruvian VIPs Secretly Got COVID-19 Shots Before Official Rollout

Nearly 500 politically-connected people in Peru, including former President Martin Vizcarra, received doses of the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine ahead of schedule. The incident is now being dubbed as "vaccine-gate."

According to a The Hill report, government consultants, lobbyists, cabinet ministers, and Vizcarra's family members had all received doses of the vaccine, which allegedly came from 2,000 previously undisclosed shots, last year.

The news of the discrete vaccinations was first revealed when Peruvian media reported that the former president received two shots last October.

"I feel outraged and furious with this situation," said Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti. He took over the role of Vizcarra after the latter was impeached for alleged corruption in November.

The Vaccine-Gate Incident in Peru

The 57-year-old former president initially insisted that he had bravely been part of a Sinopharm trial of 12,000 volunteers. Vizcarra also claimed that he had later tested negative for antibodies and therefore concluded that he had received a placebo, The Washington Post reported.

Lima's Cayetano Heredia medical school said the former president was not one of its volunteers. The medical school oversaw the vaccine trial.

Vizcarra replied by tweeting his "great surprise" and insisted that his actions had "not prejudiced anyone, much less the [Peruvian] state."

The doctor leading the coronavirus vaccine trial has said that Vizcarra knew he would be getting the real vaccine from Sinopharm. Vizcarra's vaccination was just among the hundreds that received COVID-19 doses.

A total of 468 officials and other well-connected people are now known to have been secretly injected with a batch of 3,200 complementary doses provided by Sinopharm during the trial.

The ministers of health and foreign affairs and two vice ministers included in the list have already resigned due to the vaccine-gate scandal.

Oscar Vidarte, a professor of international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, said the doses were intended to be administered to researchers and others involved in the trial.

Vidarte said that these people were "explicitly mentioned" in the trial protocol. He believed that the vaccine-gate incident resulted from Peru's mishandling of the COVID-19 vaccine doses rather than any attempt by Beijing to curry favor with the top leaders of the country.

Those who received the doses issued their own comments over the matter that further triggered public outrage, particularly comments from the health minister and foreign minister.

Health Minister Pilar Mazzetti, 64, still insisted in her final hours on her job on Friday that she would be the last person in Peru's health care sector to be vaccinated, adding that the captain is the last person to abandon the ship.

Mazzetti eventually said that nothing excuses what she did, "much less having covered it up." She added that she made the "decision with the fears and limitations of a human being," and admitted that it was the worst mistake of her life, Los Angeles Times reported.

For her part, Foreign Minister Elizabeth Astete, 68, said she had only accepted the secret shot only because she could not afford to become ill, which is a claim that has prompted many to compare her with Marie Antoinette. Astete had overseen the Sinopharm negotiation.

Prosecutors are now planning possible criminal exposure for Vizcarra, Mazzetti, Astete, and other public officials, who clandestinely received a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Last month, the Peruvian government signed an agreement with Sinopharm to buy some 38 million doses of its vaccine. After it received 300,000 initial doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, Peru only officially launched its COVID-19 vaccination program this month.

According to Johns Hopkins University, Peru has more than 1.2 million COVID-19 cases and over 43,800 coronavirus-related deaths to date.