Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica, the first to vaccinate in the region

SANTIAGO.- Two nurses, the Mexican María Irene Ramírez and the Chilean Zulma Riquelme, and a 91-year-old Costa Rican, María Elizabeth Castillo, the day before yesterday became the first three people in Latin America to receive coronavirus vaccines in their respective countries, by sending a message of hope on Christmas Eve to a region where the pandemic has killed nearly half a million people. The first day of vaccination in Latin America gave priority for health workers who fight on the front line against Covid-19 and the elderly who have lived through the past year learning how they were the group most at risk of contracting a disease for which there was still no cure.

With the arrival of vaccination, the possibility of fighting the virus seems more real, but health experts remember that we must not let our guard down and preventive measures should be continued until the vaccine is prolongedespecially in a region where the process is expected to be long and uneven due to the lack of resources to access doses and infrastructure for their maintenance and distribution.

“The truth is, this is the best gift I could have received in 2020,” Mexican nurse María Irene Ramírez said after receiving her dose when asked how she felt about the sub. Mexican Health Secretary Hugo López Gatell. “This gives me guidelines to continue with more security and more vigor at the head of this war of an invisible enemy”, added hospital worker Rubén Leñero.

The vaccination, which was broadcast live on national television in a break from the president’s morning lecture Andrés Manuel López Obrador, occurs a day later Mexico received the first 3,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and BioNTech, which will be applied in a first phase to health personnel in the capital and in the states of Mexico and Querétaro. According to authorities, the plan is to vaccinate up to 34 million people by 2021 in stages, in which the elderly and those with chronic diseases will take priority.

First in the south

Shortly after the 59-year-old Mexican nurse received her dose, across the continent, one of her colleagues, Chilean Zulma Riquelme, 46, received amidst applause and the symbol of the victory with his fingers a dose of the Pfizer vaccine at the Metropolitano Hospital in Santiago. Chile is the first country to start vaccination in South America, nine months and 21 days after the outbreak of a pandemic that caused 16,228 deaths in this country. The first 10,000 doses of the American multinational arrived Thursday morning, as the president announced the day before Sebastian piñera, and by noon, the vaccination process had started.

Along with Riquelme, the first to receive the vaccine were four other public health officials. “Each of them represents a class of those who work daily in the intensive care units of various public hospitals, being the first line of defense against the virus,” the presidency reported. Officials from three hospitals in Santiago de Chile received the vaccine on Thursday and, on Friday, health workers from three other regions in the south of the country – Biobío, La Araucanía and Magallanes – where a high number of infections are currently recorded . 10,000 more doses of Pfizer to arrive in Chile next week. According to the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, between January and February the country expects to receive five additional deliveries of vaccines from the Sinovac laboratory with nearly 10 million doses.

In Costa Rica, after 10:30 a.m., two elderly people were the first to be vaccinated, a day after the Central American country received a shipment of nearly 10,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine from Belgium.

“I am very grateful to God because I have asked a lot of him. My life is very important to me, ”said Elizabeth Castillo, 91, resident of Propam Home for the Elderly, in Tres Ríos de Cartago, after being vaccinated. La Nación newspaper. At the same center, another of his colleagues, Jorge de Ford, 72, received another dose. “My message is that everyone is vaccinated, nothing more. It didn’t hurt, nothing,” said the retiree.

Especially the elderly and workers in the health sector, some of whom were also vaccinated this Thursday, will have priority in the application of the vaccine in Costa Rica, which will receive next week nearly 12,000 additional doses.. The country plans vaccinate 80% of the population until November of next year.

The day before, the Costa Rican president, Carlos alvarado, acknowledged that the arrival of vaccines is good news in the battle against the coronavirus, but recalled that our guard cannot be lowered until vaccination is widespread in the population.

© El País, SL