Panama has sought to acquire more than 8 million coronavirus vaccine doses to inoculate about 80% of the Central American nation's residents, Health Minister Luis Sucre said on Sunday.

Panama has a population of about 4.2 million people but most coronavirus vaccines require two shots spaced several weeks apart.

Panama has requested about 1 million doses from the COVID-19 vaccine portfolio under the COVAX facility coordinated by the World Health Organization to support lower-income countries, Sucre said.

Panama will acquire a further 3 million doses from U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer Inc and the same amount from Russia, which has developed the Sputnik V vaccine.

Panama also aims to acquire 1.1 million doses manufactured by AstraZeneca PLC and 300,000 shots produced by Johnson & Johnson, Sucre added.

Reuters: Reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; editing by Diane Craft.

Update: Panama has had successful handling of the pandemic where only 1.6% of the population has passed away from the COVID-19 virus making it one of the lowest in the region, this is in part thanks to the vaccination program that started on January 20th and that as of July 5th, 1.6 million people have received at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 546 thousand people have been fully vaccinated with both doses of the vaccine, which accounts for 12.9% of the population. Another great policy is the COVID-19 tests that are being given to the passengers at the International airport, to detect infected individuals, resulting in 1,630 passengers being found infected, this allowed for appropriate measures to be taken on time to prevent the spread of the virus. Furthermore, only the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are available in Panama so far.