what will happen here with those who received the Covishield vaccine

News that the government has resumed frozen talks with Pfizer gives dimension to the lack of vaccines to deal with the second wave in progress. Added delays in supplying both Sputnik V and AstraZeneca a new supply complication, which literally comes from the other side of the world: the Indian crisis, which delayed the delivery of doses awaiting the Covishield vaccine.

India these days has become the epicenter of the pandemic with over 350,000 cases and 2,800 deaths per day, in a chain of records for all indicators. This week, the country has passed 17 million infections and 200,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The images of mass cremations due to the lack of graves and tombs move the world.

The causes of this second wave of sweeping can be found in the non-compliance with preventive measures but also in a local variant with a double mutation, which prompted the Argentine government to discourage travel to this country. And there is another piece of information: the low percentage of the vaccinated Indian population, 10%.

Analyzing global immunization statistics, it wouldn’t be striking if it weren’t for one key point: India is one of the world’s largest producers of vaccines. In fact, there is the Serum Institute, the largest factory in the world, which supplies vaccines of all kinds across the world, and which started production at AstraZeneca / Oxford months before its approval.

In view of this critical scenario, the authorities of the Asian country they have limited exports of their vaccines to meet local demand first. This change has raised alarms around the world, including in Argentina.

Indian doses

Argentina has so far received a marginal percentage from India of the 8,750,408 million vaccines that have been distributed in the country. There were 580,000 doses of the Covishield brand, the AstraZeneca formulation produced by the Serum Institute. AstraZeneca shipments delivered via COVAX, the fund promoted by the World Health Organization, came from a pharmaceutical factory in South Korea.

These first Covishield vaccines were used to vaccinate the first elderly from February 22. A month later, on March 26, the Federal Health Council decided to postpone the application of the second dose from week 12, a strategy which, in the case of AstraZeneca, had already shown greater effectiveness. UK.

The Argentine Ambassador to India, Hugo Gobbi, gave a complex picture regarding procurement from India and admitted that “we still cannot be certain” when the second batch of Covishield will arrive, scheduled for the first half of May.

“They are doing constant efforts. The Chancellor was personally involved in obtaining the release of these 580,000 vaccines, ”he said Wednesday in statements to Radio Con Vos.

Gobbi explained that until February India exported 70 million doses. But today, an intergovernmental committee decides what can and cannot be exported, and all shipments have been stopped by the internal vaccination process. “This is a problem for Argentina and for many countries which were planning to source vaccines from India,” the ambassador admitted.

What will happen to those who have received the Covishield?

The first vaccinated received the Covishield from April 22. It is only in the city of Buenos Aires, for example, that 131,000 elderly people vaccinated with the Indian drug. From the end of May, they should gradually start receiving the second dose, depending on when they received the first. But, What if the vaccines didn’t come from India by then?

The different vaccines are not interchangeable with each other: anyone who has received one dose of Sputnik cannot, for example, receive another one of Sinopharm. But in this case the difference between the Covishield brand and the Vaxzevria, the trade name of the AstraZeneca brand, is just that, a business difference.

The active substance in AstraZeneca / Oxford is exactly the same beyond the factory where it is produced, be it Serum in India, AstraZeneca in South Korea or the local partner mAbxience in the city of Buenos Aires in Garín.

So, if there is no Covishield, the project could be completed with AstraZeneca, of which the Argentine government bought 22.4 million directly from the lab. However, these vaccines have not yet started to arrive in the country.

After initial delays, the first 900,000 doses were due to arrive in the second half of April. That did not happen and on Wednesday Under Secretary for Health Strategies and Head of the Coronavirus Vaccination Strategic Plan Juan Manuel Castelli said they expected the first shipments from from Mexico arrive early next month.

Hours later, AstraZeneca released a statement explaining the reasons for delaying deliveries and reaffirming its commitment to start supplying 150 million vaccines to Latin America in the first half of 2021.

A regional problem

Argentina also acquired AstraZeneca vaccines through the COVAX mechanism, promoted by the World Health Organization. So far it has received 1,944,000 units from AZ’s plant in South Korea.

The vaccines produced by the Serum Institute have been distributed by COVAX in three countries in the region: Bolivia, Haiti and Nicaragua. This Wednesday, during the usual press conference of the Pan American Health Organization, its deputy director, Jarbas Barbosa, admitted that “not only these three countries can be affected: all other countries may experience a significant reduction“And he explained that this would happen because” AstraZeneca vaccines from other producers are going to be shared by everyone. “

Barbosa also assured that the WHO and PAHO authorities were “at a high level of negotiations with the Indian government so that an agreement can be reached” which allows the Serum Institute “to meet the commitments. signed “, but considered that” all the countries of the world they will have fewer vaccines in this month of April and probably May “.

AS