Argentina will receive only a quarter of the planned vaccines from the Covax initiative

02/03/2021 13:25

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 02/03/2021 13:33

The Covax initiative, a mechanism created for the equitable distribution of vaccines worldwide, estimated that it will send 2.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Argentina in the first half of the year.

The figure is well below the nine million doses that the Government had announced that it would receive from that supplier for the period February-July 2021.

The report detailing the distribution of doses for the first half of 2021 was prepared by the World Health Organization together with the Coalition for Innovation in Preparedness for the Epidemic (CEPI), the Alliance for Gavi Vaccines and Unicef , which expect to deliver up to 337.2 million AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines during the first half of the year, of which

35 million will go to Latin American countries

.

The document specifies that it will distribute at least 240 million doses of the

AstraZeneca / Oxford

vaccine

, which will be produced by the Serum Institute of India, and 96 million doses of this same vaccine under the advance purchase agreement between Gavi and AstraZeneca for the first and second quarter of 2021.

Thus, a total of 336 million doses will be distributed in the first six months of the year to the 145 countries that are part of Covax, but provided that the WHO authorizes it as emergency use.

Covax forecasts that 1.2 million doses of Pfizer will be available in the first quarter of 2021. Photo: AFP

As for the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, approved by the WHO on the emergency use list, Covax currently anticipates that 1.2 million doses will be available in the first quarter of 2021, although "subject to the completion of additional agreements ".

Starting in the second quarter, all 92 countries will have "additional volumes."

"The goal of sharing interim distribution with countries, even in today's highly dynamic global supply environment, is to provide governments and health systems with the information they need to

plan their national immunization programs

. Final allocations will be published at in due time, "Gavi CEO Seth Berkley explained at a press conference.

Covax's goal, Berkley reiterated, is to deliver

2.3 billion doses by the end of the year

, of which 1.8 billion would go to low-income countries at no cost to their governments.

For now, the total doses cover 3.3 percent of the total population of the 145 participants.

"This is in line with Covax's goal of reaching at least 3 percent coverage of the population in all countries in the first half of the year, enough to protect the most vulnerable groups, such as health workers," he added Berkley.

35 million doses for Latin America

Depending on the population and the advance of the pandemic,

Argentina will initially receive 2,275,200 doses

, behind those designated for Brazil (10.6 million), Mexico (6.4 million) and Colombia (2.5 million ).

Meanwhile, four Latin American countries, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador and Peru, were selected for the pilot program

"Primera Ola"

and will receive 378,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines from mid-February.

Bruce Aylward, adviser to the WHO, recalled that the figures are projections based on the estimates of the pharmaceutical company.

"There are many warnings and considerations, because producers may have smaller volumes than they expected, there may be delays in granting emergency use authorizations and this may change," he said.

"We are still waiting to see the actual projections of how many doses there will be in February and March," added WHO Deputy Director Mariangela Simao.

LGP

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