Who will be vaccinated in Chile in a first stage?
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(CNN Spanish) -
This Thursday, the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, provided more details about the National Vaccination Plan against the coronavirus announced Wednesday night on the national network, and with which he seeks to immunize about 15 million people .
"Our plan includes vaccinating the bulk of the 'critical' population in the first quarter of 2021, and a significant part of the 'target' population (chronically ill and health personnel, among others) during the first half of next year", Piñera explained.
Yesterday the Institute of Public Health of Chile authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in the southern country and Piñera highlighted that the first 20 thousand doses of the vaccines will arrive before the end of the year, explaining that "they will be available by 100 % of health officials who work in intensive treatment units with critical patients in the regions most affected by the pandemic, such as Magallanes, Araucanía, Bio-Bío, and also for an important part of these officials in the Metropolitan Region ”.
The Chilean president pointed out that once the first Pfizer vaccines touch Chilean soil, they will be transported to a specially equipped warehouse, where they will be repackaged for distribution.
The vaccines that remain in Santiago will begin their thawing process, lasting between 3 and 4 hours, while those that leave for other regions will change their cold system to ensure that they arrive in good condition.
Piñera assured that they already have three "ultra-freezers" that will allow them to store the vaccines safely.
Piñera also assured that they already have agreements and / or contracts that guarantee them 10 million doses from the Pfizer-BioNTech laboratory, 10 million doses from the Sinovac laboratory, which added to the agreements with the AstraZeneca-Oxford, Jensen-Johnson & Johnson and the Covax Alliance will allow them to reach more than 30 million doses.
With this, Piñera said that Chile will be able to distribute during the first semester of next year at least "20 million doses of vaccines - two are required per person - subject to national and international approvals, and to the delivery capacity of laboratories." .
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The Chilean Ministry of Health reported this Thursday that the total number of coronavirus cases amounted to 578,732, while 16,007 people died from complications associated with the disease.
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