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This emergency approval of the Institute of Public Health (ISP) -a Pfizer and BioNTech formula against Covid-19- will allow us to start vaccination during this month of December, that is, in the coming days.
With those words, the President Sebastián Piñera confirmed that the vaccine – free and voluntary – that could put an end to the pandemic will arrive in Chile before the end of the year.
The process, which La Moneda called “The vaccine route”, could complete its first stretch earlier than expected, according to those closely following the plan’s logistics
Along these lines, everything is ready for the arrival of the first batch of 20,400 doses, which could happen from Monday onwards. Even advanced teams from the Ministry of Health are already visiting the southern regions, Biobío, La Araucanía and Magallanes, where the inoculation will take place in parallel to the Metropolitan region.
Regarding the supply for all of 2021, the President pointed out that between the contracts and pre-agreements with Pfizer, Sinovac, Janssen AstraZeneca and the cooperation fund Covax, Chile has already assured 30 million doses, and that 20 million will arrive during the first half of next year. That is, considering that some vaccines require double doses.
“These agreements or contracts guarantee us 10 million doses with the Pfizer laboratory, 10 million doses with the Sinovac laboratory, which added to the agreements with the AstraZeneca, Janssen and the Covax alliance, allow us to reach more than 30 million of doses, which would allow us to distribute 20 million doses of vaccines during the first half of next year “, stressed the Head of Government.
Following the presentation of the President, the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, provided details on how the first doses will be administered.
The head of the sanitary portfolio affirmed that the Pfizer laboratory “has given certain dates” in the delivery of the doses, which would allow vaccination in the next few days to 20 thousand people. With this, the plan to use only half of the vaccines that arrived was scrapped, for fear that future shipments would be delayed, since two inoculations separated by 21 days are required to achieve the desired immunity and the effectiveness of 95% that the studies showed.
Paris explained that “Pfizer has promised that the second dose will arrive before 21 days. If that is correct, it happens like this and we have 100% security, we are going to vaccinate with all the vaccines as the first dose and when we have the second amount, we place the next dose ”.
The delivery schedule, although it has been kept in reserve due to the recommendations delivered by Interpol, will have a periodicity of eight to 10 days, according to the minister. That is, if the first batch were delivered this Monday, the second shipment of vaccines could arrive during this same month, close to the days of the New Year. This is one of the possible scenarios, as handled within the government.
The volume of deliveries will also increase over time: Paris confirmed that Pfizer could reach shipments of 80 thousand doses per trip from exporting countries: the US and Belgium.
Regarding the first vaccinated, which will correspond to the health teams of the intensive units of the four selected regions, the Minister of Health specified that It will be the hospitals that will deliver the list of the benefited officials.
“That is chosen by the hospital. As it is voluntary, if someone does not want to be vaccinated, they do not get vaccinated. But it is the hospital, the corresponding department heads. In each place there are nurses in charge of this issue ”, stressed. In this sense, the priority officials will be those of public hospitals, and then continue with the rest of the staff of private providers, the elderly and officials of long-term residences.
After the milestone that Pfizer marked, the other laboratories in the agreement have already begun to deliver preliminary information to the Institute of Public Health.
In that group is the laboratory Sinovac, who through the National Supply Center (Cenabast) will present in the following days the complete dossier for the analysis of the ISP’s committee of experts.
This is confirmed by the director (S) of the entity, Heriberto García. “Sinovac does not have a direct representation in Chile, unlike the other laboratories, and most likely it will make a request through Cenabast. They will receive all the information to make the emergency request just like Pfizer. We hope that this will be done in the course of the remainder of this month, or at the beginning of January ”, confirmed García.
Valentine Diaz, director of Cenabast, adds that while the final details of the definitive contract with the Chinese laboratory are being refined, “There are 10,080,000 doses, and they start counting from the second half of January and during the month of February. Cenabast is going to bring them from China to Chile, and prior to that we are going to request authorization from the ISP. We are going to intern them and together with the National Immunization Program we are going to distribute them according to the priorities that the Ministry is setting ”.
Díaz also clarified that there are 10,080,000 doses in total and that “It is estimated that they should arrive in five flights, at a rate of two million doses for each trip from January 20 onwards. Although that is in development ”, concludes.
