Juliet Roffo
07/12/2020 - 19:56
- Clarín.com
- Society
Health personnel and people over 65 years of age . These are, according to the order of priorities prepared by the World Health Organization, the population groups that would first receive the coronavirus vaccine once it was developed.
"They are two sectors highly exposed to the disease . Those over 65 because, by definition, they are a risk group and it has been shown that it is the segment of the population for which the pandemic is most deadly, " describes infectious medicine doctor Fernando Polack.
"Doctors, at the same time, are exposed to patients who have a high viral load. They are not at the same risk as someone who works at home or someone who is exposed to the virus when making a purchase in the supermarket," adds the director. Infant Foundation scientist. "It is important to protect them so that they do not get sick in the first place, and also so that they are not a vector of contagion," he says. Clarín found out that essential workers would come after those two priority groups.
The WHO recommendations are not binding regarding what the ministries of Health of each country finally decide as to who receives the vaccine as a priority. The production scale that pharmaceutical companies can reach until the end of the year is millions of units, and billions are needed to make coverage more comprehensive, according to information that Clarín agreed on . That is why priority groups would be established.
It is a common mechanism in vaccines against different types of diseases: for example, in Argentina, the measles vaccine is mandatory at 12 months and at the time of entering primary school.
"Risk is the main factor that is evaluated when determining who has priority to receive the dose," says Polack. The doctor will lead the investigation in Argentina of the vaccine in which the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, from the United States, and BioNTech, from Germany work. The country will participate in the phase that evaluates the efficacy of the treatment, and being part of the research, if successful, will give it priority to access a resource that, at least initially and in the midst of a pandemic, will be scarce.
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