Chile estimates that 80% of its population will be vaccinated against the coronavirus by the end of June

Hateful comparisons are sometimes impossible to avoid. And in the midst of the world’s largest pandemic in the past 100 years, access to the vaccine is critical for every country to slowly return to normal.

In this way, Latin America suffers from difficulties of access to vaccines, beyond the grandiose announcements that many governments have made. But there is one exception to this: Chile. The country ruled by Sebastián Piñera leads the vaccination process in the region, well above the rest of the countries. And by the end of June, he estimates that 80% of its population will have a vaccine.

This was said by the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, who also revealed that on Thursday the system had reached a record of 412 thousand people vaccinated in less than 24 hours.

“We want to vaccinate 15 million people, or 80% of sensitive people», Noted the official in dialogue with Marcelo Longobardi, on radio Miter. At the current rate, this target would be reached on June 30.

“They came to Chile more than 10 million vaccines, the majority correspond to Sinovac. We plan to vaccinate 5 million people as of March 30, and these are older adults or adults with morbidity, it is 80% of the susceptible population. I think that next week we will reach the target, ”he added.

And he celebrated: “We broke a record because the day we vaccinated 412,190 people, it is something extraordinary for the primary system ”.

Regarding the possibility of VIP vaccination In Chile, the minister was frank: “I am 72 years old and I will be vaccinated in a little longer. But no one skipped the line. What happened is that some mayors, some municipalities, vaccinated people who were not theirs, but people who deserved to be vaccinated. For example, it occurred to them to vaccinate firefighters with a vaccine, in another town they vaccinated garbage collectors ”.

The success of the Chilean vaccination campaign it relies on the vast network of primary care spread over an area of ​​over 4,200 kilometers.

The other key factor was the competence in the negotiation of vaccines, which made it possible to guarantee 35 million doses from the Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Sinovac laboratories, of which more than 10 million have already arrived in Chile, the Chinese contribution of Sinovac being the majority. . .

“President Pinera He has the particularity of visualizing certain problems, it is he who started the first conversations and led this group, ”he said. And he pointed out: “Its international management has had a lot of influence on obtaining vaccines”.

The authorities are also continuing to negotiate with other suppliers to be able to receive the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, the Chinese-Canadian CanSino or the American Johnson and Johnson in the future.

“We have signed agreements with several companies to carry out phase 3 studies, there are a lot of foreigners doing this type of study,” said Paris, who also assured that “the conversations with foreign companies were tripartite work, led by Piñera ”.

“We don’t think we can have more vaccines yet. However, we have met the ministers of health of Latin America and the Caribbean, the ministers of health of ProSur and we also belong to the Covax Alliance ”, assured Paris. He also added: “We believe that the WHO must become a little firmer and make this campaign more united“.

This Friday, President Sebastián Piñera received the second dose of vaccine made by Chinese laboratory Sinovac.

According to official data, on Thursday, Chile inoculated 381,746 people with the first and second doses of Pfizer development as well as Chinese vaccines. However, Paris updated the data during their interview with Longobardi.

Chile began immunizing health workers on December 24, 2020 and the massive process among citizens began on February 3, reaching 4,618,528 people so far, which equates to 24% of the country’s total population already around 31% of the target population who can receive the vaccine.

According to the latest data from the Our World in Data registry at the University of Oxford, Chile is currently the fastest country to administer the vaccine in the world, with an average of 1.30 daily doses per 100 people inoculated over the years. Last 7 days.

At the same time, the pandemic has worsened in Chile in recent weeks due to the effects of the southern summer, which in February had its peak month.

With 30,428 active infections, authorities have expanded areas of the country that will be in full or partial quarantine from this weekend. The pandemic has killed a total of 21,362 people in Chile so far.

JPE