Chile estimates that by February 25 it will have vaccinated 4 million people against the coronavirus

Chiles has become the regional leader in coronavirus vaccination. Day-to-day, achieves set goals and If the inoculation rate is maintained, as promised by the Piñera government, by February 25, in 11 days, 4 million people will have received the first dose

“If we continue at this rate of over 200,000 vaccinations per day, we could reach 2 million vaccinated between Monday and Tuesday. And there it would be ten more days, that is to say that on February 25 we should have more than 4 million putts, ”the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, confidently projected.

Once this target is reached, all available vaccine stock will have been used up, but authorities have confirmed that The arrival of a new shipment is scheduled for February 24.

In total, the government of Piñera has accepted the arrival of three other development shipments from Chinese laboratory Sinovac of 2 million doses each. In addition, the arrival of 400,000 new vaccines Pfizer has been accepted. And by April, 4 million AstraZeneca vaccines are expected defined in a pre-contract signed last November. Also in April, they should arrive 7.6 million doses of the Covax vaccine, as well as another shipment of 4 million vaccines from Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen.

According to official data, they are 35 million vaccines already reserved by Chile to apply to its population: 10 million come from the American Pfizer-BioNTech, 10 million more from the Chinese Sinovac and the rest from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and the Covax platform.

In addition, health authorities do not rule out that in the very near future negotiations with Novavax, a North American laboratory linked to the Serum Institute of India with which Chile already has previous contacts to add more vaccines against the coronavirus. Also in the last few hours, an agreement was officially announced with the Russian lab that created Sputnik V.

This weekend, in fact, Vaccination of teachers and members of the education sector has started with the aim of ensuring the start of face-to-face lessons from March. According to the authorities, more than 500,000 people in the sector will be vaccinated at this stage, which was anticipated since it was not scheduled until February 22.

Until the deadlines proposed by the same government have been exceeded and within days, the country became a model for its successful SARS-CoV-2 vaccination plan.

According to projections, In addition to the 4 million people vaccinated by February 25, Chile is expected to exceed 5 million people vaccinated in March and reach 80% of its population by June 2021, or around 15 million people vaccinated.

And if everything goes as planned Chile will be the first emerging country to gain immunity by the end of 2021. Today, 1.8 million people have already received the first dose.

Health Minister Enrique Paris, who was vaccinated for the first time last Friday, as well as President Sebastián Piñera, stressed that almost all Chilean health workers are already vaccinated.

Keys to successful vaccination in Chile

Experts point out two aspects to explain the speed with which the process takes place, which is voluntary and free: the competence to negotiate vaccines Yes the vast network of primary care, which crosses every corner of this country, more than 4,200 kilometers long, and which has enabled it to successfully carry out campaigns in its history, such as that of polio in 1961.

For Claudio Castillo, Public health expert from the University of Santiago de Chile, the country has played the game well with the laboratories, as he negotiated “from very early on” and whatever the geopolitics, which allowed him to receive nearly 4 million doses of Sinovac. “The Chinese vaccine is not yet very massive, it is mainly found in China, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil. Today more and more countries are joining, but at first it did not have the seal of guarantee that Pfizer did. Chile’s contract diversification strategy has been very good“He added.

In dialogue with Infobae, Dr. Eduardo Savio, coordinator of the Immunization Committee of the Pan American Association of Infectious Diseases, assured that Chile’s COVID-19 vaccination plan is a model to follow in the region. “They implemented a comprehensive program, which works very quickly and with the assurance that they will receive the vaccines in a timely manner from the providers, which is not happening to anyone. This is all the more important since today more than ever, it is important to vaccinate populations quickly. A rapid implementation campaign that can lead to the herd immunity we all desire, before emerging mutants of SARS-CoV-2 have a chance to actually invade and start disrupting the effectiveness of vaccines like this has performed in South Africa with one of them before, “he said.

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