thousands of vaccines that have been in the refrigerator for 21 days could be second doses of Sputnik

The more vaccines there are against coronavirus were stored in refrigerators, fewer Argentines will have their first or second dose delivered. What is in the refrigerators in the provinces today? The vast majority come from Sinopharm. There is also Sputnik 1 and a vestige of Moderna for minors with co-morbidities. Those from AstraZeneca and the Sputnik 2.

These two key vaccines would allow the country to go faster in order to pay for immunization schedules. Although in August the government stepped on the accelerator after pledging to complete 7 million projects, the percentage of Argentines still pending is the 60 percent of people over 18 and 72 percent of the general population.

The Russian bureaucracy is one of the obstacles: 2.6 million second components produced by the Richmond laboratory in Argentina, along with the antigen sent by the Gamaleya Institute, still depend on the Release the Moscow administration was arrogant. But the swamp is not exclusive to Vladimir Putin’s team. The Argentinian tends to flirt with others traffic jams.

Among several inexplicable situations that delayed the vaccination campaign in Argentina, the vaccine called Convidecia, of Cansino. On August 6, 21 days ago, the first batch of 200,000 doses arrived in the country, out of the 5.4 million purchased by the government. They are still in the Nation refrigerator, because they have not been distributed.

This Chinese development is a single dose, and has the particularity of being based on the adenovirus 5, the same which uses the second component of Sputnik V as a viral vector. So when the local vaccine combination trial began, it was predicted that Cansino’s would be the candidate with the most chances to be the natural replacement for Russia’s shortage.

Then the results of the combined trials showed that the supplement to Sputnik 2 did not necessarily have to be a true copy of the original: vaccines with other type of technology they could also be an alternative. It has even been determined that Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine is the one that in the sum of antibodies best answer provided.

This does not mean that Cansino vaccines can become an option, especially when observing that other activated vaccines like second doses of Sputnik, AstraZeneca and Moderna, they do not abound. When other vaccines arrive from Oxford, they must be used without fail within a homologous scheme.

On the other hand, there will be the vaccines from Pfizer, of which the first batch of 580 thousand doses – out of a total of 20 million – the government has announced that it will arrive in September. However, these could not be used as second doses of Sputnik V – although European trials support this mixture – because their application to under 18 without comorbidities.

All of this would indicate that Cansino’s vaccines could be a timely alternative to cover potholes. However, as he learned Bugle, the combined trials did not progress as planned. In the city and in Cordoba, participating in this experiment, they claimed not to have received the necessary doses to apply them in the volunteers. 80 doses have arrived in San Luis, but the order to start the trial has not yet been ordered.

What did Minister Carla Vizzotti say when the batch of 200,000 doses arrived on August 6? That they worked “so that it could also be incorporate immediately the regimen combination protocol, to speed up the second dose as quickly as possible ”. And that “other role” he might have had was to use it in “one dose to get a complete vaccination“.

As it turned out, the matter was reportedly dealt with by the National Immunization Commission on August 13. Apparently they evaluated many alternatives: to use it in adults who have not yet received the first dose, to assign it as a booster only from January 2022. All this is happening while the second doses are needed today.

From China, executives from the Cansino lab called Argentina a few days ago. They wanted to know if the vaccines they shipped three weeks ago they had applied in the country. The laboratory must manage the next batches because China authorizes their release: for at least two months this possibility was prohibited by Beijing, because the priority the citizens of this country had it.

The plan, as confirmed at Bugle from sources linked to Cansino, it would be that by September they will arrive in Argentina between 400 and 600 thousand additional doses, in batches of 200 thousand each. And that in October the lots start to be larger.

If you look at the time lag between the first and second dose of Sputnik V (a difference of 6.4 million as of today) these Chinese single-dose vaccines could be the wildcard of the Russian deficit. But whatever the presumption of effectiveness of the combination, it is essential take the test before corresponding. A test that is still waiting.

PS