⁍ As scientists race to find a coronavirus inoculation, Colombia says it is ready to distribute any vaccine which proves effective.

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⁍ Its preparedness is thanks to decades of work on a free government immunization program which offers 21 vaccines to everyone in the South American nation.

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⁍ The program covers not just Colombia’s own population of about 50 million people but also more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants.

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– Colombia has become the eighth country in the world to surpass a million cases of coronavirus, and health officials there say they’re prepared for any future outbreak, Reuters reports. The South American country has a free vaccination program that covers not just its own population of 50 million but also more than 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants and includes shots for everything from infant shots to human papillomavirus. “We have a really strong vaccination program that serves as a model and which will incorporate the new formula that will arrive against COVID,” the health ministry’s secretary general says. Colombia has already committed $213 million to the global COVAX initiative, guaranteeing COVID-19 vaccinations for about 10 million people. People over 60, those with pre-existing conditions, and healthcare workers will be immunized first. Colombia’s cases have climbed steadily despite more than five months of a gradually loosened quarantine, which has battered the economy and sent unemployment soaring. Besides the cost of the vaccine itself, the government plans to spend up to 300 billion pesos, about $78 million, on transport, information campaigns, regional warehouse expansions, and personnel to inoculate the initial 10 million recipients, Burgos says. The Bogota warehouse can hold about 50 million vaccine doses, Burgos says, and is regularly at about 50% capacity. But reaching remote populations in Colombia’s mountains and jungles will be as difficult with a COVID vaccine as with other immunizations. “It’s not easy to have to navigate rivers and then walk or have to go with animals, on horseback,” Burgos says.