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Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica were the first countries in Latin America to start vaccination against Covid-19, this Thursday (24), while Brazil remains one of the few nations on the continent that does not even have an official forecast for the start of the immunization campaign.
The first 10,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by Pfizer / BioNTech laboratories arrived in Chile on Thursday, and a 46-year-old nursing assistant was the first to be vaccinated. The country signed a contract to buy 10 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and will begin serving health professionals.
“When someone receives the vaccine, they are not only protecting themselves, but the people they love, their community and their country,” said the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, who went to the airport to accompany the arrival of the first lot. Chile will be voluntary and free for the 18 million inhabitants: the government plans to vaccinate 80% of the population in the first half of 2021.
Mexico received 3,000 units of the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday (23). This morning, a 59-year-old nurse received her first dose.
“Today is the beginning of the end of the pandemic,” celebrated the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard. Mexico registered 120,311 deaths from Covid-19, it is the fourth country in the world in deaths, only surpassed by the United States, Brazil and India.
“I am a little nervous, but very happy. It is the best gift I could get in 2020, it gives me more security and more courage to continue the war against the invisible enemy,” said Mexican nurse María Irene Ramírez, the first to receive the vaccine in the country.
In Latin America and the Caribbean there were 14.9 million infections due to the new coronavirus and 490 thousand deaths.
A 91-year-old woman living in a nursing home was the first person to be vaccinated in Costa Rica, also on Thursday. The country started the asylum campaign.
“It is a very important moment for our country,” said President Carlos Alvarado.
Argentina received a shipment of 300,000 doses of the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, on Thursday, and the government announced that vaccination will begin next week. He also reported that the country will receive an additional 5 million doses in January.
The vaccine obtained authorization for emergency use on Wednesday – it was the first country to approve this type of authorization for the Russian immunizer.
Globally, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Israel and Switzerland have already begun to vaccinate the population. In the United States, where more than 360,000 people died, more than 1 million Americans have already received the first dose of the vaccine in 10 campaign days.
In Brazil, Fiocruz announced that the AstraZeneca vaccine in partnership with the University of Oxford will begin to be delivered to the Ministry of Health from February 8. But the Secretary of Health Surveillance of the Ministry of Health, Arnaldo Medeiros, did not give a date for the start of vaccination.
In a public hearing in the Chamber on Tuesday (22), Medeiros said that the folder will receive at least 150 million doses in the first half. Of this total, vaccines from Butantã, Pfizer and AstraZeneca are included.
There will be 100.4 million doses of the immunizer AstraZeneca, 46 million of Coronavac – the acquisition of more doses is being negotiated – and 8 million doses of Pfizer.
Among these vaccines, the only one that has already obtained emergency authorization in other countries was Pfizer. But the secretary admitted that Brazil has not yet signed a contract to buy vaccines from the US pharmaceutical company; He said Brazil’s negotiations with Pfizer are advanced and the contract is in the process of being finalized.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said that in the worst case, vaccination would begin in February. “Our prognosis, as always, at the end of January in the best of cases, going until mid-February, the end of February, with the worst chances. We are going strong to be able to have vaccine of various shades and deliver it as soon as possible, ”he said.
The minister has already made other statements, however, saying that vaccination could start in December of this year or in January or March 2021.
The governor of São Paulo, João Dória, even announced for January 25 the start of vaccination with Coronavac, produced by the Butantã and Sinovac Institute. However, the São Paulo government has postponed the publication of data on the effectiveness of the immunizer.
Ecuador is another country that is ahead of Brazil in the race for vaccines. The Ecuadorian government expects to receive the first 50,000 doses of Pfizer in January to immunize the elderly in shelters and health professionals working on the front line against Covid-19. Mass vaccination is expected to begin in March.
The government is in an advanced stage of planning for the distribution of the immunizer: there will be 400 distribution centers, including health posts in the rural area, and 10,000 vaccination posts, in pharmacies, universities and offices. Ecuador experienced scenes of horror at the beginning of the pandemic, with overcrowding of hospitals and accumulation of corpses.
In Colombia, President Iván Duque announced that he has reached an agreement to buy 40 million doses of vaccines and estimates that the immunization campaign will begin in February.
Health professionals, the elderly, people with comorbidities such as obesity or cancer, and basic education teachers will be the first in line.
Other countries are lagging behind. In Uruguay, President Luis Lacalle Pou is the target of criticism for not having announced contracts with pharmaceutical companies, other than the Covax consortium, and transferred responsibility for the negotiations to the Presidency, from the Ministry of Health.
In the dictatorships of the continent there are not great advances either. Cuba is testing its own vaccine, Soberana 02, but little is known about the results.
In Venezuela, the dictator Nicolás Maduro announced that the country should start vaccination against Covid-19 only in April 2021 with immunizers from Sinovac, Chinese and Sputnik, Russian. Nicaragua is also betting on the Russian vaccine, but dictator Daniel Ortega has not announced the start date of the immunization campaign.
Peru has already obtained 16 million doses, of which 9.9 million from Pfizer / BioNTech. But the government has not announced a start date and is still preparing to have storage capacity for Pfizer vaccines, which require minus 70 degrees Celsius to be valid for six months.
The race for immunization
They began to vaccinate this Thursday (24):
Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica
Starts next week:
Argentina
Get started in the next few months:
Ecuador – January
Colombia – February
Venezuela – April
No official forecast:
Brazil, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Peru
They were already vaccinating:
Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Russia
