Factors that have led Chile to be the absolute leader in vaccination in Latin America

Santiago, Chile.- Chile’s mass coronavirus vaccination process continued at breakneck pace and the government has reported that more than 1,800,000 people have already been vaccinated, representing about 10% of the population.

According to the Ourworldindata.org site – developed by the University of Oxford-, Chile is the first country in Latin America with the highest number of doses supplied per 100 people and received a series of international praise for the mass vaccination plan which began on February 3.

“Let’s go. Next week we will start with the vaccination of people between the ages of 65 and 70, and we will continue until we reach each of our compatriots,” he said with euphoria. President Sebastián Piñera, who received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in the municipality of Futrono, Los Ríos region, in southern Chile.

“Because 2020 has been a difficult year, a year of great anguish. Together, we will make 2021 the year of hope, “added the head of state, who was vaccinated with the CoronaVac dose, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, as part of the plan determined by the Ministry of Health and which benefited Friday, according to the official calendar, to adults between 71 and 72 years old.

“In Latin America, we are far from the first”, added in a similar tone the Chilean Minister of Health, Enrique Paris., and one of the most excited about the vaccination plan whose first phase began on December 24 of last year with the vaccination of critical health workers who work in intensive care units.

With an average of about 200,000 vaccinated per day (Thursday, for example, 241,333 doses were inoculated), country aims to reach five million people vaccinated by March and thus cover 80% of the population in the first half of 2021.

In this sense, the financial services company JP Morgan supported this desire and projected that Chile could be the first emerging country in the world to obtain collective immunity against Covid-19, and in front of countries like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico or Argentina itself, which according to the renowned investment bank would be able to immunize its population between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.

Among the reasons for the rapid progress of the vaccination process, a diverse health network stands out across the country with more than 2,500 establishments and more than 60,000 health workers., in addition to a decentralized and autonomous offer which lies in the fact that the primary care system depends on 87% of the municipalities.

“Primary care has devoted all its resources and all its time to immunizing sensitive populations, even to the detriment of the rest of the services they provide on a daily basis. But these are teams dedicated to territorial work, prevention and promotion, because it is a network that extends to the most remote places of the country ”, explains María Elisa Quinteros, academic at the University of Talca and epidemiologist.

Claudio Castillo, an academic at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Usach and an expert in public health policy, also appreciated this tradition in terms of immunization coverage.

“The teams act from memory, because they have an important territorial base. That way, and as the immunization schedule progresses with age and risk groups, they come to an optimal design, ”said Castillo, who addressed another factor.

“The Sinovac vaccine requires preservation of the fairly normal cold chain, between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, unlike the Pfizer vaccine which requires a super freeze of around -70 degrees. And although the country has a chain of 26 posts to protect it, this has logically generated more complex logistics and this vaccine facilitates this process, ”added the academic.

Another aspect, according to experts, which has generated the success of the Chilean plan is also linked to the early measures taken to obtain a sufficient stock of vaccines.

“The country has negotiated agreements in advance to obtain sufficient doses”, said María Elisa Quinteros, doctor of public health.

Expert Claudio Castillo added another factor. “This is happening in a very complex confrontation with the pandemic, with a very high number of cases and deaths, and with a poor response by some measures. This therefore occurs in a context where there is a citizen aspiration for rapid vaccination. Now we have the vaccination in the elderly who are more convinced of the process and that reflects that over 73 years we have more than 70% coverage, ”he said.

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