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From Mexico to Argentina, what will the vaccination schedule be like in Latin American countries?

2020-12-12T03:07:12.280Z


Mexico is the only one that so far has defined the beginning, while the others point to some time in the first half of 2021.


John Tenth

12/11/2020 6:00 AM

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 12/11/2020 6:00 AM

Facing the final stretch of 2020, one of the most anticipated news worldwide is

when the vaccination process

against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will begin.

Latin America is no exception, and the different countries of the region are beginning to prepare for this event, which will be crucial when leaving the pandemic behind.

In this sense, the news in recent days was that Mexico released its vaccination schedule.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced last Tuesday that his country would begin to distribute the vaccine from the third week of December, and that the first to receive it would be health workers.

For this first phase, you would use the first batch of the more than 34 million doses that you purchased from Pfizer-BioNTech.

The governor of São Paulo, Joao Doria, wants to start vaccinating in January, despite the fact that approval of the vaccine in Brazil would take longer.

Photo: AP

If it manages to meet these deadlines, Mexico would be the first country in the region to

start the vaccination process against COVID-19

.

In Latin America, one of the areas most affected by the pandemic, the race to obtain the vaccine has suffered the characteristic obstacles of inequality in the region.

While countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina have been able to close private agreements with the laboratories that are making the vaccine, others have no alternative but to put their hopes in

the Global Access Fund for COVID-19 Vaccines

.

Known as COVAX, this plan, promoted in part by the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to “accelerate the development and manufacture of vaccines against COVID-19 and ensure fair and equitable access to them for all countries of the world".

In Latin America, practically all the countries are committed to the project outlined by COVAX.

Within COVAX, there is an alternative known as Advance Purchase Access (AMC), which is specially designed so that the poorest countries in the region, such as Honduras or Bolivia, can also access the vaccine.

A worker disinfects a health kiosk where rapid tests for COVID-19 are carried out, in Mexico City.

Photo: XINHUA

The vaccination schedules of each country are obviously conditioned by how their access to the vaccine will be.

Except for Mexico, which officially announced its plan,

few concrete details are known

of how the other nations of the region will implement this process.

In the same way,

until the vaccines are officially approved

, it will be difficult to obtain more detailed details on how each country will approach the vaccination of its population.

Private purchases

As mentioned above, there is a group of countries in the region that have been able to make purchases directly from laboratories and thus

ensure a stock of vaccines for their population

.

The most notorious are Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, while one notch below are Peru, Ecuador or Panama.

Although Mexico will begin its vaccination process with a contingent of 250,000 doses of the 34.4 million it bought from Pfizer, the truth is that its largest purchase was made from AstraZeneca, which developed its vaccine together with the University of Oxford: 77 million doses.

Image of a laboratory where the vaccine against COVID-19 is manufactured.

Photo: AP

The López Obrador government also bought doses of the Chinese vaccine developed by the Cansino laboratory, and also of the Russian Gamaleya vaccine.

According to the president, the vaccination will be

"universal and free

.

"

In the schedule detailed by Mexico, after health workers it will be the turn of those who are most at risk from the possibility of contagion of the virus.

People aged 80 and over will be the next group

, followed by the other groups in decreasing age order (people aged 70 and over, and so on).

The second stage is expected to start in February.

Brazil is another country that has a significant stock of privately purchased vaccines.

It has insured

100 million doses from AstraZeneca,

as well as contingents from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac and also from the Russian one.

The question of the schedule is

traversed by the strong political tension

that the pandemic has generated in Brazil.

In order to be used, any vaccine must be approved by the local National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), an agency under the orbit of the president, Jair Bolsonaro, one of the fiercest critics of health responses to the pandemic.

The first doses are expected to arrive in the country in January, but their approval process would take at least 60 days.

This means that the vaccination process could be delayed until March 2021.

However, the governor of São Paulo, Joao Doria, confronted with the president over his response to COVID-19, announced that his state would

begin the process on January 25

with the vaccine from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac.

Its intention is to immunize 9 million people, following a schedule similar to that proposed by Mexico in terms of the order of priorities (first health workers and then patients at risk and the elderly).

This is likely to end in a confrontation between the São Paulo government and the national government, since to carry out his plan, Doria needs at least

a special authorization from Anvisa

.

Chile, for its part, would receive the first 25,000 doses from the Pfizer laboratory near the end of the year, and in mid-January it expects to have another 2 million doses from the Chinese Sinovak laboratory.

So far, the information is that he plans to start his vaccination process in the first half of 2021, and that it

will be voluntary and free

.

Among the countries that have purchased vaccines privately are also Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica and Venezuela.

The government of Nicolás Maduro purchased at least 10 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine from the Russian laboratory Gamaleya.

While none of these countries gave precise details of when they plan to start the vaccination process, they all aim to be able to vaccinate their health workers - the first group to receive the vaccine anywhere - sometime in the first half of 2021.

All through COVAX

Although almost all the countries in the region are committed to the COVAX initiative, some depend on this plan more than others.

Colombia, for example, is in private negotiations with at least six laboratories to obtain a vaccine privately.

However, he has not yet been able to specify anything, and for now only has ten million doses that would reach him through the COVAX program.

The same happens with Bolivia.

The Health Minister revealed last month that they had had "fruitful contacts" with some laboratories, but that nothing had yet materialized.

It should be mentioned that the country is one of those that will have priority access to the COVAX program.

Paraguay and Uruguay are two countries that so far

depend on the distribution that COVAX will make

in the region, although without the priority status that will correspond to the most urgent countries.

The start dates of the vaccination process point to the first half of 2021.

Look also

The “massive” flight of foreigners, a collateral effect of the coronavirus pandemic in Panama

The fight in America for the free distribution of the covid vaccine

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2020-12-12

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