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Coronavirus vaccine: they are already moving forward with the signing of the contracts and could add the Army to the vaccination campaign

2020-10-31T11:32:44.488Z


Once the controversial law has been approved, the government expects to start closing the deals next week. And he designs an immunization operation of unprecedented complexity.


Adriana santagati

10/31/2020 6:00 AM

  • Clarín.com

  • Society

Updated 10/31/2020 6:00 AM

This Thursday, the Senate took

a key step

for the long-awaited coronavirus vaccine to reach Argentina: it approved a specific vaccine law that enables the national government to close those agreements.

The norm is not without controversy because, they point out from the opposition, it includes clauses that protect pharmaceutical companies, such as that in case of litigation with the State, it is not settled in an Argentine court but in the country chosen by the company.

From the Government they explain that it is a question of supply and demand: the laboratories are the ones that have the precious good, and these conditions

were set to all the countries

to which they will sell their vaccines.

Argentina has been negotiating with several of those who are at the top.

In some cases, such as the American Pfizer or the British AstraZeneca, with the companies;

in the vaccines of Russia and China, directly with the states, because they have a stake in biotech companies.

With the law approved, only the promulgation is missing to start signing the contracts, which could already happen

as of next week

.

“A risk contract and / or contracts are signed that provide for return even without the approved vaccine.

What is bought is a production reserve and priority in the delivery period in a context of high demand and insufficient supply ”, confirmed to

Clarín

Lisandro Bonelli, Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, and one of the officials who is in daily monitoring of the pandemic.

The ministry's plan is to buy

a total of 40 million doses to cover a population of 20 million

, but the priority is to vaccinate health personnel, security forces, older adults and people between 18 and 59 years old with risk factors. .

This whole group, they calculate, is

12.5 million

.

Lisandro Bonelli, Ginés chief of staff, gave details of how the Covid vaccination campaign will be.

Photo Ministry of Health

How many doses will be purchased from each of the laboratories?

“Our goal is that the first vaccine that appears,

we are quick to catch at least one part

.

Clearly a single laboratory is not going to be able to provide the entire target population that we want to vaccinate, ”says Bonelli.

Depending on how many doses are bought from which laboratory, it will be the final calculation of

how much money Argentina will invest

in the fundamental tool to stop the pandemic: the most economical is AstraZeneca (which will be produced in part here) at $ 4 per dose. , and the rest are around 10 dollars.

"We will buy what each one has, it does not depend on us," he says.

There were no conversations with the American laboratory Moderna (it is the most expensive, at around $ 35), nor with the Spanish Archivel Farma, which has just announced its phase II clinical trial in our country.

Argentina has already transferred $ 31.7 million to the COVAX fund, an initiative of the World Health Organization that seeks to guarantee the

equitable distribution of vaccines

among all countries.

In it, the countries make a joint investment in manufacturing in advance, and then receive doses based on the contribution made.

Exactly

9,075,353 doses

will arrive from

COVAX to vaccinate just over 4.5 million people

.

The mAbxience laboratory plant in Clarín, where the AstraZeneca vaccine will be produced locally.

Photo EFE

As this newspaper learned, one of the laboratories anticipated that a first batch of 750,000 doses could arrive in December.

Two others promised between January and March, and a fourth expects to finish all their validation processes for distribution in April.

The Government is confident of reaching that month with significant coverage of those 12.5 million that will be vaccinated in the first stage.

"The goal is

not to go into another winter without vaccinating,

" Bonelli remarks.

Now, how are those doses going to be distributed that come in batches?

"First, the health personnel will be vaccinated," anticipates the official, who estimates around

one million workers

with

priority for immunization

.

Bonelli also concedes that this vaccination operation will have

an unprecedented complexity so far

, not only due to logistics and urgency, but also due to social pressure.

Clarín

had already realized, for example, the complication of the cold chain that some vaccines require, which are kept at 80 degrees below zero: "It is more complex, but we are going to accommodate it," he says.

A volunteer participates in a human trial of a possible vaccine for the coronavirus.

AP Photo

In theory, the diagram of the vaccination strategy would be very similar to that of influenza, which this year had

record levels due to the pandemic

with 14 million people immunized in little more than a month through the official campaign.

But in practice it is not.

The Province of Buenos Aires, for example, has already anticipated that it will double the number of vaccinators.

And the Chief of Staff of Ginés González García slides that they are analyzing the possibility of

the Army joining the Covid vaccine operation

, and the minister already spoke informally with his Defense

counterpart

, Agustín Rossi: “It is one of the things that are in folder.

The Army has good logistics and distribution capacity ”.

There is another issue related to the vaccine that worries the Government.

It is not the contracts, it is not the distribution, it is not the cold chain: it

is the demand of the people at the moment the campaign starts

.

They fear an overflow in the vaccination centers because an order of priorities will necessarily have to be met.

“Security forces are going to have to be there to organize.

And we are also going to work a lot on communication.

They are the problems that the pandemic gives you and you have to solve them,

”Bonelli closes.

ACE

Source: clarin

All life articles on 2020-10-31

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