The government plans the arrival of more vaccines for the next few days – Telam

The government plans for the next few days the gradual normalization of the administration of the Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus and the arrival of vaccines arranged by the global Covax fund, after a week during which new commitments have been announced to acquire more doses and thus ensure coverage of the population over 18 years of age.

Casa Rosada received news this week that reinforced its decision to bet – months ago – on Sputnik V, after the prestigious British scientific journal The Lancet published the results of phase 3 which confirms the efficacy of 91.6% in preventing the coronavirus and which confirms that the vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Institute is safe.

Although the The Minister of Health, Gins Gonzlez Garca, clarified that “no vaccine is approved because of what appears in a magazine”, the global impact of the news has pushed more international actors to take an interest in the development of the Moscow laboratory, including certain countries of the Old Continent, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said she was “open” the application in Europe of this vaccine.

The deliveries

Meanwhile, government officials are hoping for a gradual normalization of Sputnik deliveries in the short term while stressing that there is a “bottleneck” which in many ways was “expected” and which affects everyone.

More specifically, the government indicates that the developers of the Russian vaccine encountered, on the one hand, an unforeseen delay due to quality control that the Gamaleya Institute must perform in laboratories in third countries that produce it, such as India and South Korea.

The other factor that Its complexity is the growing interest that Sputnik V is arousing in countries which at first seemed to rule it out as an option.

For this reason, the executive underlines that the increase in the production of a drug which should ideally immunize billions of people in a short time involves logistical difficulties which many countries suffer today, and not just Argentina.

“Production increases so that Argentina receives the agreed volume”“

Vladimir Poutine

On the same day it was published in The Lancet, President Alberto Fernández spoke with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who told him that “Production is increased so that Argentina receives the agreed volume.”

In this regard, the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, asserted that the country will continue to receive vaccines “as it did, try not to extend the deadlines any longer “.

Thus, the objective is to specify the arrival of the 30 million doses of Sputnik V; more than 22 million doses of AstraZeneca and 2.2 million from the Covax fund (global initiative for access to vaccines against the coronavirus, promoted by the World Health Organization), as confirmed by the Minister of Health during its presentation to the Chamber of Deputies.

New doses

On the other hand, this week, the health quality secretary, Arnaldo Medina, assured that these 22 million doses of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca will join, in the next 60 days, two additional lots of 580,000, which will arrive between the rest of February and March.

“If we remove the 15 million Argentines under the age of 18, we have almost covered the Argentine population, and the truth is that for what we lack, we are in two or three negotiations”, declared the minister before the legislators.

“Collective immunity will be obtained from July”“

Arnaldo Medina

In this context, the official considered that “Collective immunity will be obtained from July”By then, explained Gonzlez García, they “will decrease transmissibility and reduce mortality, which is the first objective”.

In the same vein, the secretary for access to health, Carla Vizzotti, ratified that between February and March “the vaccines from Russia will arrive, those of AstraZeneca, which are produced between Argentina and the Mexico “(by agreement between the pharmaceutical company and the private laboratories mAbxience and Liomont, which is sponsored by the two governments) and added that they” are negotiating to see if there is another possibility as well “.

With the doses already received, the immunization plan continues to progress in immunizing health workers across the country.

When the new doses arrive, the next recipients will be “those over 60, starting with those over 70; then people between 18 and 59 years with risky conditions and strategic lines, such as preschool, primary and secondary teachers and non-teachers, and security and defense, ”Vizzotti said.

Negotiations with Pfizer

During the presentation to MPs last Wednesday, Gonzlez García also raised the situation with Pfizer, the American pharmaceutical company which has carried out tests of its vaccine in the country but which, according to the national authorities, “behaved very badly “with regard to negotiating the massive supply of the drug.

According to the government, the Negotiations with Pfizer have been suspended, although officials consulted by Tlam stress the relationship was never severed, in particular with the representatives of the company on the national territory.

“At all times we tried to reconcile positions and, although the orders were impossible to fulfill, all kinds of alternatives were sought. But nothing reached the central offices,” a source told Tlam who was in charge of the finest negotiations.

According to information, during these interviews in November and December, one of the objections of the American laboratory was stated in article 3 of law 27573/2020 (law on vaccines designed to generate acquired immunity against Covid-19 ) with which Congress regulated the purchase of vaccines.

In this law, the Nation safeguarded a series of assets – the same that are safe in debt swaps – so that they are not seized in the event of a lawsuit for the harmful effects of the vaccine.

“To save this, they were offered to take out bail insurance, but they also rejected it. The feeling was that they were asking him for the impossible to give up on our side,” said the same source.