Uruguay has started applying third dose against Covid – News

Uruguay has started applying a booster dose of Pfizer to people vaccinated with Coronavac, in a combination on which there are no studies, but which local experts consider safe and necessary in the face of the threat of the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

The Uruguayan government is thus ignoring the World Health Organization (WHO), which asked a few days ago to postpone plans to administer a third dose until the countries most behind schedule at least vaccinate. 10% of their population.

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About a third of Uruguay’s 3.5 million people have already signed up for the vaccine after receiving two shots of the vaccine from Chinese laboratory Sinovac.

Uruguay has already vaccinated 73% of its population with at least one dose against Covid-19, while 67% have the full regimen.

But of the total vaccinated, 65% received Coronavac, considered less effective in reducing infections.

In this context, the objective of the authorities when approving the reinforcement is to take advantage of the fact that there is still no community circulation of the Delta variant to build a wall of immunological protection.

Thus, Uruguay becomes the third Latin American country, after Chile and the Dominican Republic, to strengthen an inactivated virus vaccine (Sinovac) with a dose of messenger RNA (Pfizer), although there is no still have no studies on mixing these two platforms.

Luis Lacalle Pou’s government made the decision after the recommendation of the National Vaccines Advisory Commission and an ad hoc group, as the scientific community keeps repeating that the combination is safe.

“The mix of platforms boosts immunity, historically it is like that,” virologist Santiago Mirazo told AFP news agency.

“It is clear from a theoretical and experimental point of view throughout the history of immunology,” he added.

The scientist explained that one of the reasons for the decision to apply a third dose is to verify that the Coronavac antibody titers decrease over the months.

“The studies that have been done on a combination of vaccines have shown a very slight increase in side effects,” Mirazo said, also adding that most of them are “mild and moderate”.

“The measure is reasonable, correct, timely and evidence-based,” Mirazo insisted, adding that it was “a public health decision.”

Uruguay, after remaining for several weeks the nation with the most daily deaths relative to its population, experienced Saturday August 7 the first day of 2021 without deaths from the virus, a fact that was repeated the next day.

In this auspicious scenario, the government announced last week the gradual reopening of borders, the possibility of parties with dancing and the return of football with the public, with the aim of resuming something similar to the old normalcy.

And with the Delta variant proving its potency in the Northern Hemisphere, the Third Dose is the weapon of choice for trusting openings.

For Mirazo, SARS-CoV will be endemic in the near future and therefore reinforcements will be inevitable.

“The world will live with the coronavirus and periodic reinforcements will surely be needed,” he concluded.

According to a study by the Uruguayan Ministry of Public Health, out of more than four million doses administered until July 15, the percentages of adverse reactions allegedly attributable to vaccination were 0.02% for Coronavac and 0.06% for Pfizer.

The most common were injection site pain, headache, muscle pain, general malaise, diarrhea, tremors, headache, cavities and bronchial spasms.

For severe effects, mainly venous thrombosis, the ratio was two per million doses.