Coronavirus in Argentina: How will the armed forces support the vaccination plan

Amid the global uncertainty that still prevails in the fight against the coronavirus, the national government reported that the start of the vaccination plan in Argentina, it will be in the first half of January for groups at risk, health personnel and security forces.

And President Alberto Fernández said he hoped that March some are vaccinated 10 million people.

One of the pillars of the optimism of the ruling party, which could not support a policy of screening and health monitoring in order to avoid the escalation of infections in this country, is the organic structure of the armed forces, which has already been offered to support the national immunization plan.

According to the information you have Bugle, the Ministry of Defense set up a logistics program in the Health portfolio and made available for mass vaccination 80,000 men and women, military hospitals, air and land installations throughout the national territory.

The plan even has a name: “Operation General Belgrano II” and depends on the operational commander, brigadier general Deobalo Scobal, which in turn is under the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also Brigadier General Martin Paleo. And this in turn from the Minister of Defense, Agustin Rossi.

The Belgrano II is part of the “General Manuel Belgrano” plan, which was deployed last March in the context of the explosion of the pandemic, and of the decree that established the extended quarantine in Argentina.

So the armed forces were deployed in the 14 joint emergency zone commands, including twelve under the responsibility of the army.

Since then, the armed forces have accomplished more than 260 days of support to the pandemic plan, they fed more than 11.7 million people, in disadvantaged areas, where they delivered 14 million food rations, according to figures provided to Bugle General Escobal.

At the recent Hemispheric Defense Conference, held by Editorial Tadea during his 15 years, its director Mario montoto and a group of Argentinian and Brazilian soldiers agreed that the armed forces his biggest operation since the Falklands War in 1982.

Now, according to Minister Rossi, there is support for the vaccination plan, which will have similar characteristics to the deployment of aid to feed the most unprotected

On November 1, Paleo and Escobal held the first operational meeting with Deputy Minister Carla Vizzotti on Rossi’s instruction.

There have been two meetings so far between health and defense, and they have been working with the following idea: the armed forces will act on the vaccination plan on request Health and not in a disjointed way. And they will get involved in the activities they know how to do and not in what they usually don’t do because they come from the health field. The Ministry of Defense is that the idea came, for example, from use the voters list to vaccinate.

Although the armed forces have hospitals, doctors and nurses, the Covid-19 vaccination plan will require special treatment amid great local and global uncertainty. Lots of medical activity will require social work, say the specialists.

For example, the military will not be involved in the initial distribution of the vaccine, and they will only get involved on request in the management of inputs, in transferring vaccine doses requiring extreme cold.

They won’t have vaccinators either, which must be ordered by the Ministry of Health, although there is ultimately military support for the vaccination. But they even have their “Day of”, the beginning of the same, when the ANMAT approves the vaccine.

But the military has an advantage that Paleo and Escobal exposed to Vizzotti that Salud does not have. The structure of the armed forces manages the army organically and vertically in the 24 provinces. On the other hand, Health is faced with 24 different situations in each province and with different ministers.

Escobal said Bugle that they have 17 hospitals available, 4 Hercules C 130 planes and helicopters for transfers and more staff. In operations carried out since March, 174,236 men and women have participated, if this measure is considered with staff on rotation.

DD