Chile started vaccination against COVID-19 in minors between 12 and 17 years old

Chile began this Tuesday the vaccination of minors between 12 and 17 years old against COVID-19 in another stage of the successful vaccination campaign which has the first country in Latin America and among the most favored in the world.

Health authorities have determined that the vaccination will be carried out with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and the first will be adolescents in the centers of the National Service for Minors (Sename), mental health centers and those with specific comorbidities.

“The goal is to vaccinate all children and adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, because we already have a vaccine which is approved to be able to fulfill this role ”, indicated the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, at the start of the vaccination campaign in Santiago.

“When we have the appropriate vaccine, we will also vaccinate children under 12”, added.

Chile one in Uruguay, who started vaccinating adolescents between 12 and 17 years old two weeks ago, becoming the first Latin American country to do so.

Chile has received more than five million doses of Pfizer / BioNTech since mass vaccination began major on February 3.

In addition to Pfizer / BioNTech, you received the vaccine Sinovac (18.1 million), AstraZeneca (897,600, of which 489,600 via the international Covax mechanism) and CanSino (575.908). A total of 24.6 million doses were received.

It is also Johnson & Johnson vaccine approved for use, but no shipment has arrived yet. In Chile, 11.8 million people have already received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 9.3 million have received two doses.

The government wants to vaccinate until the end of June to the target population of more than 15 of the 19 million inhabitants of the country.

Although the vaccination process in Chile was swift, the President Sebastián Piñera said at least two million people in the target population have not yet been vaccinated.

“It means a risk not only to the health and life of these people, but also means a risk to everyone around them», He affirmed.

Chile IIt takes several days showing a reduction in cases of infections daily. In the past 24 hours, 3,464 new infections and 45 deaths have been recorded, leaving the total toll since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 at more than 1.5 million people infected and 31,690 deaths.

it’s about the lowest figure in six weeks, since May 11, when 3,771 infections were recorded, although authorities have warned that new cases are still low on Tuesday due to the weekend effect.

New cases in the past 7 days have fallen in 13 of the country’s 16 regionsWith northern Arica and Parinacota, Tarapacá and Atacama accounting for the most infections, active cases (which can infect) also saw a decrease to 36,114 patients, while hospitalized patients remained close to 3,200.

The positivity rate fell below 10%, The threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to start controlling the disease and in the last few hours was 8% nationally and 9% in the metropolitan area, where the capital is located and where they live. 7 of the country’s 19 million inhabitants.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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