schema:articleBody
| - Seven Honduran mayors on Thursday received the first of 34,000 coronavirus vaccine doses donated by El Salvador, after they made a request for help to the president of the neighboring country. The mayors posed for a photo at a bridge on the border where the vaccines arrived, with banners proclaiming: "President Nayib Bukele, Honduras thanks you." Bukele, in return, said in a tweet the moment was "historic." Honduras has had difficulty obtaining vaccines to control a pandemic that overwhelmed hospitals after political campaigning for March primary elections and massive population movements over Easter. The country of nearly 10 million people has so far received 248,600 doses. El Salvador, with its 6.5 million inhabitants, has secured all the doses it needs and has Central America's highest inoculation rate. Honduras has registered about 220,000 coronavirus infections and 5,600 deaths compared to El Salvador's 70,900 cases and 2,100 deaths. On Sunday, Bukele agreed to a request from seven opposition mayors in Honduras to provide vaccines for their people. The mayors claimed the national government was "incompetent" in its management of the pandemic. Bukele received the mayors on Tuesday and confirmed the delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses. On Monday, Honduras announced its neighbor had also agreed to help it get coronavirus vaccines from China, with which Tegucigalpa does not have diplomatic ties, but El Salvador does. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has a complicated relationship with Bukele, who has been critical of his counterpart's reelection in 2018 and has denounced corruption there. Bukele is himself under fire after a new parliament with his allies in charge voted to oust the country's attorney general and top judges he had been in conflict with, in a move that drew international concern. nl/cmm/mlr/to
|