Pablo Sigal
12/11/2020 12:26
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 12/11/2020 12:26
With the curve of coronavirus cases falling in Argentina and the vaccine apparently increasingly close to being applied at the local level and beginning to generate immunity in the population, a member of the government's committee of experts took stock of the pandemic in the country and gave details on the next vaccination campaign.
It is Omar Sued, president of the Argentine Society of Infectology.
- About the Russian vaccine there is a part of the population that has doubts. Is it safe and effective?
- There was a question of communication and wrong transmission of information.
It was said for example that with this vaccine you cannot drink alcohol.
And that is a common recommendation that doctors make to moderate alcohol consumption when applying a vaccine.
When there is confusion, a negative reaction is generated.
Decisions must be made with objective data.
The possibility or not to vaccinate with Sputnik depends on the data that the ANMAT evaluates.
- What does this evaluation consist of?
- It is the analysis of 40 thousand people who have already been vaccinated, how many of those people were infected and how many were not, and how many people had adverse effects.
That this information is validated and verifiable.
If the ANMAT considers that it is adequate, it will approve it and if it considers that it needs more information, it will request it.
You will not be able to vaccinate until the ANMAT gives the green light.
- For all that analysis that the Argentine control body has to do, is there enough time to start vaccinating before the end of the year?
- It all depends on how long the ANMAT evaluation takes and how long it takes for the vaccine to arrive in Argentina.
The vaccination training courses are already underway, the dissemination activities on the importance of getting vaccinated with any vaccine are underway, the Ministry's work with scientific societies is underway, to organize the issue of volunteers and strategies.
It is also good news to know that Argentina is going to Russia because that speaks of a special care, one more reinsurance.
- What will happen to allergy sufferers from Pfizer's recommendation that they not get vaccinated?
- It is not recommended that people who had anaphylaxis receive vaccines in general.
They are reactions that require oxygen and adrenaline.
This does not have to do with a person who has a bad cat or tomato hair, or who has allergic rhinitis every spring.
These are people with very active immune systems and then an allergen that you do not know can lead you to intensive therapy.
For the Covid vaccine we do not have the capacity to vaccinate all people.
We are aiming to go among the riskiest segments.
When we have vaccines for all, these people who cannot be vaccinated for this or other causes are the ones we aspire to protect with the true "herd effect", which is that produced by a vaccine and not by the disease itself.
- Is it advisable for non-vulnerable people to get vaccinated or is it better to wait to have greater certainty about the safety of vaccines?
- It is critical to vaccinate people who are at risk of dying.
It is ethically important.
Anyone over 60 must have priority.
When we ran out of those over 60 and health personnel, if we still have vaccines we would have to continue expanding to other groups and prevent the epidemic from continuing to spread.
It all depends on the amount of vaccines we get, which is not just a challenge for Argentina but a global challenge.
Argentina will have vaccines before the end of the year, but there are neighboring countries that have already said that until March or April they will not be able to vaccinate.
- It is said that the central countries are stocking vaccines above the needs of their population. Will this affect access to vaccines in peripheral countries?
Well, President Trump just signed an executive order that prohibits American companies from selling vaccines to other countries until all Americans are vaccinated.
But luckily the WHO is working on an initiative to make it possible for poor countries to buy vaccines at an affordable price.
It is an international pool so that in all countries there is a minimum percentage of vaccines.
- The vaccine would not be the solution overnight either. Meanwhile, there are some attitudes of relaxation in the population: Maradona's wake, River celebration, demonstration for abortion.
- We are seeing with concern that these situations are more and more frequent.
If it is a single event the effect is limited, but if this is repeated it is worrying.
But what worries the most is the day-to-day of people, if there are meetings of friends without distance or chinstrap.
We are also concerned about the end of the year holidays, which have the characteristic that between Christmas and New Year there is just an incubation period.
If your brother-in-law has Covid and it infects you at Christmas, it is most likely that on the New Year you will infect your mother-in-law, because you went with the other half of the family and just seven days passed.
And then if you take the grandchildren to the grandparents in Reyes, you have seven more days.
This concatenation of two parties every seven days must be taken into account.
Avoid critical guests and be outdoors.
- What care must be taken on vacation?
- In Spain the outbreaks began at the end of the summer, where there were many parties in closed places.
One can go to the coast and be with family and friends on the beach sunbathing.
What you can do is be in a space of two by two drinking from the peak of the same beer.
- Are there any new clues about the recontagments? How long do antibodies last in people who have had coronavirus?
- The coronavirus generates immunity.
There are published less than 30 recontagios in the world on millions of infected.
The event itself is low.
It could happen, it is not exceptional, it happens with many diseases.
The message to people is that you have to continue taking care of yourself despite having had coronavirus.
In the same way, they will be vaccinated.
Antibodies last at least six months in most people.
About 10 percent do not make antibodies and it is some of these people who are reinfected.
But antibodies are not the only thing that gives immunity, but also cellular immunity and natural immunity.
Most of the people who had coronavirus and have a fever again, it is most likely the flu, but it will have to go to control.
- When in March you began to advise the Government with the committee of experts, did you plan to reach December with more than 40 thousand deaths and almost 1.5 million infected?
- Clearly not.
We all had the illusion that this was going to be a little better, shorter and bearable.
A steady decline has been seen for a few weeks.
It hurt us a bit that the rift broke in the middle of the pandemic.
There was a crack at the communication level, especially when the AMBA began to decrease in number of cases and the Interior began to grow.
A slightly stricter strategy in the Interior would have helped, but weighed the economic need and the fatigue of the people.
Now it seems that it is improving.
Hopefully there won't be a rebound of cases.
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