Despite the success of the vaccination campaign, the pandemic worsens in Chile: fourth day with more than 5,000 infections

Chile recorded 5,734 new cases of covid-19 and 100 deaths as of Sunday, bringing the total balance in one year to 891,110 infected and 21,674 deaths and shows that the second wave of the pandemic that emerged after the southern summer vacation is far from contained.

It’s him fourth day in a row 5,000 new cases are exceeded, numbers that have not been seen since June of last year, as the country went through a critical situation, with the health network on the verge of collapse and most of the population in total quarantine.

Currently, 33,290 patients are in the active stage, which means they can spread the disease, and 2,015 people hospitalized in intensive care, of which 1,739 are assisted by mechanical ventilation, the health ministry reported.

The virulence of the second wave forced the authorities to announce new total quarantines in major cities, such as Concepción, Valparaíso or La Serena, and containment during weekends in the metropolitan region, to which the capital belongs and where 7 of the country’s 19 million inhabitants live. This weekend, therefore, 90% of the population of Chile is confined, which over the past 24 hours has recorded a national positivity rate – the number of COVID-19 infections detected per 100 PCR tests performed – of 8.2%.

To stop the pandemic too the curfew has been brought forward by one hour for the whole month of March, which will start at 10 p.m., being even more rigid for restaurants and retail, which must close their attention to the public on weekdays at 8 p.m.

Despite the poor data, Chile continues to move forward with its successful vaccination process and over the next week, 5 million people are expected to have received at least one dose of the vaccine..

According to the One World Data register of the University of Oxford, Chile is the fastest vaccinating country in the world, with 1.4 daily doses per 100 inhabitants, followed by Israel, with 1.04 doses.

What is behind Chile’s success?

Officials and experts say the explanation lies in early and simultaneous negotiations with several pharmaceutical companies, previous contact with some companies and a strong vaccination system that covers the entire 4,000 kilometers of its territory.

In the early months of the pandemic, in 2020, headlines were that Chile had become one of the worst-hit countries in the region, behind only Brazil and Peru, and criticism from authorities abounded for being unable to locate and isolate people to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

At the same time, however, there was another story going on that few people knew, which had started several weeks earlier and which would later help ensure rapid access to vaccines.

The Minister of Science, Andrés Couve, told the AP What formal negotiations with pharmaceutical companies began in April, a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. In May, he said, they had already presented President Sebastián Piñera with a roadmap with certain plans to acquire the vaccines once they were developed, and that included the country’s participation in clinical trials.

But part of the history of vaccination dates back to October 2019, in China, two months before the Asian nation announced the first cases of the new coronavirus. That month, Dr Alexis Kalergis, biochemist and director of the Millennium Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at Catholic University, attended an international conference on immunology in Beijing with two Chilean colleagues.

He met several expert colleagues there, including some from the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd, which would very soon be the key to the development of the new vaccine against the coronavirus.

When China announced in January 2020 that it had identified a new virus, Kalergis thought of the Sinovac experts he saw in Beijing and started contacting them.

“We are working on vaccines and we know that the type of health tools needed for a disease of this type are precisely vaccines,” Kalergis told the AP. “And taking advantage of the experience, the contacts and the interest that we have expressed, it is established that we have started conversations with Sinovac.

The immunologist said he spoke with the rector of the Catholic University, Ignacio Sánchez, about the need to involve the government. Sánchez met with officials from the Ministries of Health, Science and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to whom he explained the need to start formal negotiations as soon as possible. Then April arrived and negotiations began.

At the head of the negotiations was Rodrigo Yáñez, Undersecretary for International Economic Relations. From the start he told the APIt was agreed to speak with different companies, laboratories and world bodies, such as the UN, and always without closing to any possibility.

“The heart of Chile’s vaccination program and vaccine research strategy has been precisely this pragmatism, this flexibility,” he told the AP. They have always looked, he added, “for different alternatives and not to put all the eggs in one basket”.

In June, well before any Latin American country, Chile had already signed a contract with Sinovac, which has promised to make preferential deliveries to it once the vaccine is licensed, according to Kalergis.

In addition, in December 2020, Chile participated in clinical trials of the Sinovac vaccine with 2,300 people, mainly medical personnel. The South American nation also participated in the trials of AstraZeneca, Janssen and CanSino, another Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Currently, Chile has purchased just over 35 million doses. So far, Sinovac has pledged 14 million doses, Pfizer 10.1 million and AstraZeneca four million, in addition to the government acquired an additional 7.8 million through the international Covax mechanism, which seeks equitable access to vaccines in the world. For the moment, the authorities have invested 200 million dollars and estimate to inject 100 million more.

“Chile’s primary health care system is the largest in Latin America“And during the vaccination process,” he demonstrated his absolute strength, “said Dr Mercedes López Nitsche, director of the Immunology Program, of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile and of the Núcleo Milenio de Inmunología e Immunotherapy.

This is not the first time that Chile has shown the strength of its vaccination system: between March and April 2020, as the virus spread around the world, the country vaccinated eight million people against the flu.

The deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, Jarbas Barbosa, attributed Chile’s success to the fact that “it is a high income country” because it had “good planning and used to good make use of the resources at its disposal to conclude bilateral agreements with certain producers ”. .

(With information from EFE and AP)

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