(CNN) Peru's foreign minister has stepped down amid a furor over government officials being vaccinated against the coronavirus, even before the country began rolling out doses to health care workers. President Francisco Sagasti said that he had accepted Elizabeth Astete's resignation and an investigation was under way into other senior public officials who had received early doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. Deputy health minister Luis Suárez Ognio has also resigned over reports that he got vaccinated ahead of health care workers. The scandal broke on Thursday when Peru's former president Martin Vizcarra, who was ousted from office on November 9 over corruption allegations, confirmed a report that he and his wife had received shots of a vaccine from the Chinese state pharmaceutical company Sinopharm in October. Vizcarra claimed that he and his wife, Maribel Diaz Cabello, were vaccinated as part of a clinical trial, but Cayetano Heredia University, which is in charge of the trials, denied that they had participated as volunteers.

Source: CNN February 15, 2021 21:22 UTC