What PAHO Said About Childhood Vaccination With Sinopharm In Argentina

“A vaccine against Covid for children and adolescents It must have the approval of the regulatory authority of the country. In Argentina it is ANMAT. Product review is for each country”. After a question from Bugle, was Jarbas Barbosa, deputy director of Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), who referred to Argentina’s health strategy of immunizing children from 3 to 11 years with doses of Sinopharm.

As every week, the Covid virtual information session brought together, for an hour, the director and deputy director of PAHO – the regional arm of the World Health Organization (WHO) -, Carissa Etienne and Jarbas Barbosa, and Ciro Ugarte, Director of Health. Emergencies, and Sylvain Aldhigieri, incident manager for Covid-19.

Barbosa’s remarks came after a weekend “moved” by questions on the local strategy to promote vaccination of children from 3 years old, on the part of Argentinian Society of Pediatrics (SAP), who suggested taking more precautions against pediatric use of a vaccine for which preliminary phase 3 data are not yet available.

Beyond the fact that on Monday the controversy subsided after the approval of the provincial ministers of health in Cofesa and the subsequent meeting between the doctors of the SAP and the minister of health, Carla Vizzotti, the recent statements of the OPS represent a support for the local vaccination campaign, which was not only necessary, but will bring peace of mind to many families and promises to promote greater adherence to vaccination.

“On behalf of the WHO, we already have the Pfizer vaccine approved for adolescents. As for those of Sinovac, Sinopharm and Moderna for minors, data is being analyzed and briefly the analysis will be ready, in order to give a recommendation for these groups ”, underlined Barbosa, before noting that each country evaluates the best strategy to follow.

One thing is the “authorization” of the WHO and another, the “use”, noted the manager. He clarified that “each country has different vaccination coverage” and, based on this data, “whether a country has already vaccinated and has available doses and vaccines authorized for adolescents”, for example, “must be used“.

He noted that priority should be given to groups with risk factors, precisely the same thing that was announced this Monday in Argentina: that on October 12 they will start with boys from 3 years old with comorbidities.

Good and bad vaccines

Based on the journalists’ questions, Barbosa tackled two rather critical issues. He did it through different stories.

It follows from the first that any vaccine for any age group is, in principle, “good” if the national regulatory authority has analyzed the data and approved it.

From the second (explicit reference to the Cuban Sovereign vaccine, and implicit to the Vacuna rusa Sputnik V), What there are no “good or bad vaccines”.

Regarding the first, he explained that, having fulfilled the first objective of protecting the groups most at risk (the elderly and health workers), “the strategy of each country must be well founded according to the availability of vaccines for which it is needed. has. Each country adopts its best strategy according to its reality; based on vaccines authorized by your regulatory authority“.

In this sense, while “children and adolescents were not a priority group because attention was focused on adults”, if now a country has vaccines and they are licensed in other segments, ” they must use them, ”he pointed out, in direct reference to the ANMAT recommendation for the use of Sinopharm in boys.

Sputnik in the air

A journalist’s question was not about the approval of Sputnik (an object of which Bugle consulted PAHO on several occasions without success) but on the subject of the Sovereign Cuban vaccine. However, the two themes can be linked.

Barbosa’s argument, in this case, was similar to the previous thread: a sort of PAHO-WHO “moves” from being a health regulator to the virtual world and, in return, the issuance of a vote of confidence in national regulatory authorities.

He has pointed it out several times: WHO approves certain vaccines in order to negotiate the doses of these laboratories, which it then resells through its working capital at advantageous prices to help its member countries.

For this reason, he said, “in matters of Sovereign, each country has its authorities. WHO does not allow countries. Each country makes an assessment of the documents submitted for the vaccines. “

Instead, he added, “We only use the clearances made by the WHO prequalification team for our approvals. We cannot talk about vaccines that have not completed this process. They are neither good nor badBut we can’t talk about what we haven’t looked at carefully. “

Three chords

Barbosa said it has entered into three agreements, to provide vaccines for the remainder of 2021 and 2022.

“Director Etienne had announced an agreement with Sinovac. Now we end with Sinopharm and AstraZeneca. Between AstraZeneca and Sinovac, we will have 18.5 million doses by 2021. By 2022, we are negotiating based on countries’ demands. That is why we are asking you to submit your nominations this week, ”he announced.

Corn vaccines are not enough, had remarked the director of the organization a few minutes before, when, as in other meetings of this type, she had urged (in direct allusion to the United States) that “countries with a vaccine surplus share with countries in the region. They can be a lifeline. “

He said it in general, thinking of “future pandemics“(subject on which he elaborated at length), but also, in particular, alluding to the” now “.

It is perhaps for this reason that Ciro Ugarte pointed out a moment which worries them particularly: the New Year’s Eve celebrations, “which are approaching and will generate an increase in mobilization”.

The response, in the event of outbreaks, “must be rapid”, warned the manager, recalling: in addition to vaccination, “we learned that when we implement the public health measures (chin strap, avoid large concentrations of people, physical distancing and hand hygiene) it is possible to control the pandemic“.

PS