When will collective immunity be obtained in Argentina?

The government has indicated that before autumn arrives, 13 million Argentines should be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Beyond the Russian Sputnik V, they are moving forward with all providers through the Covax plan, whose vaccines will be “in March in Argentina”, promised President Alberto Fernández. In addition, negotiations are underway with Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

However, various referents in the health field suggest that there is delays in the vaccination plan and that the operation will last until the end of 2021. “I think at least it will take all this year“, he says Bugle the former Minister of National Health, Adolfo Rubinstein. In the same vein, Graciela Ocaña considered that the vaccine purchasing policy was “erratic and false” and said it was “difficult to be able to immunize 13 million people by March”.

This Friday, the secretary for access to health, Carla Vizzotti, confirmed that already 200,059 doses were applied Sputnik V vaccine intended in this first step for health workers. At present, progress is being made in the distribution of 152,900 doses of the second component, which will be used to complete the regimen.

In this regard, Rubinstein points out that “the first doses they took a long time“Because ‘we’re talking about 200,000 doses that were given in about three weeks.’

“If you extrapolate that, you obviously need well over a year. Because ideally, it is necessary to reach a target population to be vaccinated in the order of 35 million in Argentina», Continues the former minister. This number excludes those who have no indication to be vaccinated, such as children and pregnant women.

To reach 70% of this target population – which would make it possible to achieve “collective immunity” – some 25 million people they should be vaccinated with two doses. “We’re talking about 50 million doses. It’s practically impossible arrive in terms inferior to a year. I see this really very difficult, ”says Rubinstein.

The Strategic Vaccination Plan published at the end of December estimates a total of 54,431,000 doses for vaccinate between 23 and 24 million people (calculate an estimated loss rate of 15% in the application).

The priority groups are health workers (763,000), security and armed forces (500,000), teachers and non-teachers (1.3 million), over 60 years (7,279,394 + 94 000 in retirement homes) and people aged 18 to 59 with risk factors (5,653,000).

According to Rubinstein, one of the problems is that today the government the supply of vaccines is not assured to reach this “white population”. And even if they have been reached, the logistical operation linked to the vaccination is “very complex”.

For these reasons, the former minister does not see it possible to apply either. 150 thousand doses per day in the province, as reported by the Deputy Minister of Health of Buenos Aires, Nicolás Kreplak, in dialogue with the radio El Uncover. “It’s a goal extremely ambitious”, Sentencia Rubinstein.

This Monday, from the Ministry of Health a vaccine arrival schedule was released. According to official information, on the basis of signed contracts, other 4.7 million doses of Sputnik V the rest of January, then 14.7 million in March.

To this they add 9 million of doses committed by the Covax plan – to arrive between February and July – and 22.4 million Astrazeneca and Oxford vaccine (nearly 1.2 million in March, 4.6 million in April and 4.6 others in May, 3.4 million in June and 8.5 million in July). With these contracts, this Monday ratified the vaccination plan for 85% of people over 18 in 2021.

But even within the ruling party they also admit that there have been delays in vaccination. Pablo Yedlin, head of the Deputies’ Health Committee, acknowledged that “We will spend the whole year vaccinating”.

“It took a long time (the operation). We will spend the whole year vaccinating. The pace at which he started has to improve, otherwise we won’t get there. The plans will start when large quantities arrive: it will depend on each jurisdiction and will be done on the basis of records, ”he said in an interview with The nation.

Yedlin added that the goal was still to immunize all essential and health workers and those over 60 and at-risk groups. And that “nowhere in the world do they meet the deadlines they had promised”.

Rubinstein agrees on this point. “In many countries around the world, campaigns are going much slower than expected. Usually everyone is far behind the goals. So the reality is we can hardly go faster“, He says.

“I think the problem is that Argentina has adopted an erratic and erratic policy in acquiring vaccines,” he said. Bugle MP Graciela Ocaña. “Sputnik V, which is the only one available to date, has not published its information in scientific journals. And, in this sense, Brazil did not allow it due to lack of data, ”he said.

Added to this is the inability to apply it to people over 60. “It is the population that we must target and, so far, with Sputnik V we cannot reach it”, he warns.

He says that “with AstraZeneca, the government first negotiated and the vaccine was very good, but then it had some setbacks in phase 3, so it wouldn’t be until March.”

Among the errors, he points out that “negotiations were not made at the time with all the pharmaceutical companies that had developments“.

“They didn’t come to an agreement with Pfizer either. We consulted the CEOs in a letter to see if they had asked Argentina for special conditions and they replied that they had not, as in other countries, ”says Ocaña.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that the world would face a “catastrophic moral failure“If rich countries accepted coronavirus vaccines at the expense of poor nations.

“I have to be blunt. The world is on the brink of catastrophic moral failure, and the price for this failure will be paid in lives in the world’s poorest countries,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said .

For the director-general of the WHO, the situation jeopardizes equitable access to the vaccine in the world and affirmed that 39 million doses of vaccines against the coronaviruses have already been administered in at least 49 rich countries.

Faced with the autumn and winter season in Argentina, it is essential that at least the main risk groups are vaccinated. “Right now, the main goal must be to vaccinate the population most at risk before the second wave hits,” says Rubinstein, who estimates it would arrive in April or May.

DD