How does vaccination against co …

Mass vaccination is already underway in some countries and in others it is on the verge of doing so. How are the US, UK and Russia doing? What does Europe lack to start protecting its citizens? What remains to be unlocked for Argentina to do the same? What about the poorest states and what role will the COVAX platform, the space created by the World Health Organization, play? The beginning of the end is closer, but the procedure will not be so simple. Vaccines, at the moment, are rare technologies and the powers that be are using their power to ensure sufficient doses and more.

North America

The Food and Drug Administration of United States (FDA), in the first place, approved the emergency use of the vaccine developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer (EE.UU.) y BioNTech (Germany) and they have already started with the application of 3 million doses. To this first formula, we must add the variant of Modern, which received its authorization on Friday. Donald Trump himself has announced that “distribution will begin immediately”. The Moderna candidate had already received the green light from the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Biologics. This step served as a precursor to the final decision that naturally fell to the FDA. As planned, its distribution will begin next week and will be in addition to that of Pfizer and BioNTech. The good news comes when the contagions and the death toll are alarming. The United States is the country most affected by the coronavirus, as it has passed 17 million infections and is close to 320,000 deaths. The priorities when distributing doses are clear and a similar order can be observed around the world. The United States will be no exception, inoculating health workers and the elderly first.

Canada began vaccinating its residents in the middle of the week with the variant developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. 30 thousand doses was the symbolic figure that arrived as the first batch on Canadian soil, although it will receive around 250 thousand before the end of 2020 and 20 million more from the first quarter of 2021. A fact to be highlighted is that the government of Justin Trudeau He has signed agreements with 7 different vaccine suppliers and ensured the arrival of a total of 414 million doses, which is equivalent – considering a population of about 38 million. – the greatest number of doses per inhabitant on the planet. . Indeed, it would suffice to vaccinate several times each of its citizens.

United Kingdom and European Union

In England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the Pfizer and BioNTech variant was approved by the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency on December 3. In England alone, there are already more than 50 health care facilities that are inoculating citizens who constitute what are considered to be “risk groups”. The UK government has ordered 20 million vaccines and an estimated 4 million will arrive before the end of this year. One of the most recurring themes during the first weeks of the intervention was that of the side effects that the active substance generated in people with a serious history of allergies. Two workers belonging to the National Health Service faced reactions (an anaphylactoid condition) and from there it began to be recommended not to inoculate this RNA vaccine to people with this clinical history. A similar allergic reaction was caused in two people who were inoculated with the variant in the United States. In addition to that from Pfizer and BioNTech, the UK has said it will approve the vaccine AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. As planned, the authorization will take place from December 28 to 29.

Earlier this week, the European Medicines Agency is expected to give the green light for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to begin being injected into people living in all countries of the European Union simultaneously. The meeting was scheduled for December 29, but the German government insisted it be held before the holidays. The approval of Moderna, meanwhile, could take place on January 6 and, from there, wait a few days for the doses to travel from the laboratories to the health centers which will take care of supplying it.

Russia

It was the first nation to order the start of mass inoculation on December 5. They expect between 6 and 7 million citizens to receive the drug in the coming months. In the present, Sputnik V It is applied to military and health personnel, between 18 and 60 years old, in 70 health establishments scattered over its territory. In this sense, the words of Vladimir Poutine they were entangled in a new decontextualization by the hegemonic media. The president said he would be vaccinated “without fail as soon as possible” because he is over 60 and still not licensed to do so. “I am listening to the recommendations of the specialists and so I have not done it yet, but it is clear that I will do it as soon as possible,” Putin said. And then he said that the variant designed by the teams of experts in his country “was safe and effective”. However, some voices seeking to discredit the Russian vaccine have promoted the idea that the president himself is wary of the variant manufactured in his territory. In truth, he has not yet been vaccinated because he is 68 years old and those over 60 will start to be vaccinated when, finally, the Gamaleya Center presents the results of clinical phase 3 to the elderly. It is estimated that it will be in the next few days.

At the same time, Gamaleya, in charge of research and clinical trials, proposed to the laboratory AstraZeneca, which works in collaboration with the University of Oxford, to combine their preparations so that the candidate of the British institutions (which will also serve inoculating Argentines from March) can improve its effectiveness. It is noteworthy that it had reached an average efficiency of 70 percent, an average that was pulled between two different lines of research, while the Russian option had reached as much as 91.4 percent. What is striking is that the AstraZeneca and Oxford variant is the most successful one and was a bit relegated in the last section.

China

The Asian giant has nothing less than four variants in the last phase of clinical trials. To the two lines of research carried out by the public company Sinopharm, we must also add the formula of the two private players CanSino Biologics and Sinovac. Unlike the adenoviral vectors that the Gamaleya Center combines and the RNA messenger vectors used by Moderna and Pfizer, the Chinese have opted for a more traditional methodology. They decided to inoculate the inactivated virus, a technique used in vaccines against bird flu or polio; In addition, it does not require a specific refrigerator for the active substance to continue to protect the people who receive it. For this reason, all the logistical hurdles that US company technologies could cause in semi-peripheral countries without so much infrastructure would be avoided.

Until, the vaccine manufactured by Sinopharm (whose clinical trials are conducted in many countries, including Argentina, through the Fundación Huiuda) has been supplied to over a million people for emergency use and has not been reported no adverse reactions. As it emerged, the government could make 600 million vaccines available and the Argentine president would look favorably on the possibility of reaching a deal to receive 15 million in March.

Argentina

Alberto Fernández indicated that after the contract with the Sovereign Fund of the Russian Federation, 300 thousand doses would arrive before the end of the year and from 2021, enough doses will arrive to vaccinate between January and February 10 million Argentines. Carla Vizzotti, the Secretary of Access to Health, is in Russian territory with experts and Anmat technicians in order to carry out all the corresponding evaluations and to close the details of the logistics of the flights with the first vaccines which could arrive next week , precisely on December 23. Members of health and safety personnel they will be the first to receive the inoculations. The adult adults They constitute the other big group, therefore, the Argentine delegation awaits the approval of Russia of the application of Sputnik V for the more than 60 years. While, the Ministry of Health has presented ANMAT with a request for “emergency authorization” of the Russian vaccine, to speed up procedures and that it can begin to be applied as soon as the first doses arrive in the country.

Many countries have already started the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine approval procedures after the mass inoculation started in the UK and US. Some of them in which the logistics process will start soon are: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Israel, Singapore. The WHO, for its part, has promised the arrival of 2 billion vaccines for developing countries which would otherwise have more difficult access to technology. According to the calculations of the World Health Organization will be distributed during the first half of 2021. It will be via the platform COVAX, a global access fund whose endorsement has been signed by no less than 172 countries. The goal is for vaccines to arrive regardless of the purchasing power of each country. Argentina is part of the space that seeks to bring together governments, health organizations, laboratories, scientists, philanthropists, and private sector and civil society organizations. As a first step, COVAX proposes that at least 20 percent of the population of each country can be protected. With this, at-risk groups could have defenses and reduce the lethality of the pathogen, which tends to cause more problems, especially in places with the poorest health systems. It’s the beginning of the end, but it’s still missing.