no one checks that each dose against the coronavirus is given to whom it corresponds

As with so many irregularities that occur in Argentina, the problem is not just the irregularity, but the problem. lack of control which sanctions or dissuades them. When the irregularity is linked to the coronavirus vaccines, the situation becomes even more sensitive: there is few vaccines for many people. In this context, we know every day new episodes of “vaccinated VIPs”, which are emerging thanks to journalistic investigations.

A almost two months Since the start of the vaccination campaign in the country, there is still no clear example of control in the state as to whether the available doses are being applied. to people who belong, according to the priorities of the national plan.

Civil servants without rank limits, parents of civil servants and now even university students under the age of 30 have received vaccines which, by protocol they must have corresponded to other people. The manual is clear: first, the health staff, the second over 70, the third over 60 and only the fourth, the strategic staff, including teachers.

But the practice goes in other ways and the priorities, according to the district, are modified. The experts consulted agree that it is necessary an audit to be able to know if what is done is done well. To this is added a complication: that the controlling state when it is the same State which commits the irregularities.

As has happened on other occasions in uneven national history, there is now the idea of ​​the new Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, to create a commission that oversees these kinds of situations. For now it was an announcement, since until Friday no progress had been made in the start-up.

The commission would be integrated by the president of the Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Pablo Yedlin; the president of the Senate Health Committee, Mario Fiad; the president of the National Immunization Commission, Mirtha Roses; one member of the Pan American Health Organization and another of Unicef.

Yedlin, member of the Frente de Todos, was consulted by Bugle: “There are several proposals for creating a control body. Let’s see which one you end up choosing. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that the irregularities that have been known are marginal, which does not mean that they are doing well, ”said.

Marginal or not, it will surely depend on the glass you look at it with. One of the tools that Vizzotti’s new management has just created is the Public vaccination monitor. There, we can follow in real time how many vaccines have been applied in Argentina by district and to which groups at risk, but these are just numbers. The data of vaccinated people are private and can only be accessed by the Ministry of Health.

The latest figures uploaded to the Public Monitor show the following: health workers, 787,366 people; over 60 years old, 92.758; from 18 to 59 years old with risk factors, 2,871; strategic staff, 20,865. Strategic personnel are understood to mean: security and armed forces, teachers, non-teaching staff, state officials and prison administration staff. A large bag in which it is impossible to discriminate.

It is not known, for example, in which category they registered the university students who attended the call center in Buenos Aires. But all this information is nominalized, on the other hand, in the Integrated Health Information System of Argentina (SISA). In other words, it is possible determine the identity of the person vaccinated and compare it whether a dose of the vaccine is right for them at that time, depending on the risk group to which they belong.

Adolfo Rubinstein, former Minister of Health, said Bugle that “there is no audit of the vaccines applied in the country. The problem is also that the provinces they don’t have to download the data in Nomivac (the information base on vaccination within SISA), and to this are added any unregistered vaccinees. “However, he added:” All cases of irregularly vaccinated persons who were known seem recorded. ” Or if the state could have noticed.

Eduardo López, infectologist and member of the expert committee advising the government, agreed that there is no objective control who receives each dose of. He assured that good practices in the application of vaccines “It depends on who is responsible for vaccination in each of the centers in which they are applied. And he felt that “doctors cannot be asked to decide whether it is right or wrong to vaccinate a certain official.

How all those consulted agree that the irregularities that emerge could have a trap if, on what is actually recorded, there would be some sort of control. In other words, that there is a person responsible for controlling the Nomivac, where the registry is nominalized and includes the document number, address and risk group to which each person belongs, among other information.

Yedlin added that “now it’s the provincial ministries that control these things. There is no external control body. The idea of ​​combing the Nomivac is possible, it would be necessary to generate the software tools necessary to be able to cross the data and determine in which cases there are irregularities ”.

PS