Two nurses, the Mexican María Irene Ramírez and the Chilean Zulma Riquelme, and a 91-year-old Costa Rican woman, María Elizabeth Castillo, have become the first three people in Latin America to receive vaccines against the coronavirus in their respective countries. sending a message of hope on Christmas Eve to a region where the pandemic has left almost half a million dead.
The first day of Latin American vaccination has given priority to health personnel who fight in the front line against covid-19 and to the elderly who have lived the last year listening to how they were the group most at risk of a disease for which there was still no cure.
With the arrival of immunization, the possibility of fighting the virus seems more real, but health experts remember that we must not lower our guard and we must continue with prevention measures until the vaccine is widespread, especially in a region where the process is expected to be long and uneven due to the lack of resources to access the doses and the infrastructures for their maintenance and distribution.
"The truth is that it is the best gift I could have received in 2020," said the Mexican nurse María Irene Ramírez after receiving her dose when asked how she felt by the Undersecretary of Health of Mexico, Hugo López Gatell.
"This gives me guidelines to continue with more security and more vigor at the head of this war of an invisible enemy," added the hospital worker Rubén Leñero.
The vaccination, which has been broadcast live on national television in a break from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's morning conference, comes a day after Mexico received the first 3,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine that will be applied in a first phase to health personnel from the capital and the State of Coahuila.
According to the authorities, the plan is to immunize up to 34 million people in 2021 in a multi-stage plan in which the elderly and those with chronic diseases will have priority.
Shortly after the 59-year-old Mexican nurse received her dose, on the other side of the continent one of her colleagues, the Chilean Zulma Riquelme, 46, received amid applause and making the symbol of victory with her fingers a dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Hospital Metropolitano de Santiago.
Chile is the first country to start vaccination against covid-19 in South America, nine months and 21 days after a pandemic broke out that has caused 16,228 deaths in that nation.
The first 10,000 doses of the American multinational arrived that same Thursday morning, as President Sebastián Piñera announced the day before, and before noon the immunization process had begun.
Along with Riquelme, the first to receive the vaccine were four other public health service officials.
"Each one of them represents a group of those who work daily in the intensive care units of various public hospitals, being the first line of defense against the virus," reported the Presidency.
Officials from three hospitals in Santiago de Chile will receive the vaccine this Thursday and, as of Friday, health workers from three other regions in the south of the country - Biobío, La Araucanía and Magallanes - where a high number of infections are currently registered.
Another 10,000 doses of Pfizer will arrive in Chile next week.
According to the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, between January and February the country expects to receive five additional deliveries of vaccines from the Sinovac laboratory with almost 10 million doses.
In Costa Rica, after 10:30 in the morning, two seniors were the first to receive the immunization, a day after the Central American country received a shipment of almost 10,000 doses of Pfizer's vaccine from Belgium.
“I am very grateful to God, because I have asked him a lot.
My life is very important to me ”, said after being vaccinated Elizabeth Castillo, a 91-year-old resident of the Propam Home for the Elderly, in Tres Ríos de Cartago, reports
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At the same center, another of his colleagues, Jorge de Ford, 72, received another dose.
“My message is that everyone get vaccinated, nothing more.
It didn't hurt, nothing, ”said the retiree.
Precisely the elderly and health sector workers, some of whom were also vaccinated this Thursday, will have priority in the application of the vaccine in Costa Rica, which next week will receive almost 12,000 additional doses.
The country plans to immunize 80% of the population until November of next year.
Doña Elizabeth Castillo, 91, is the first person in Costa Rica to receive the vaccine against COVID-19.
Is a reality.
With the arrival of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, we started vaccination.
pic.twitter.com/vEzRc3B8JK
- Carlos Alvarado Quesada (@CarlosAlvQ) December 24, 2020
On the eve, the Costa Rican president, Carlos Alvarado, recognized that the arrival of vaccines is good news in the battle against the coronavirus, but recalled that you cannot lower your guard as long as immunization is not widespread in the population.
“Vaccines are a respite on this Christmas Eve.
At this time let us give the most important gift: give health, taking care of ourselves and respecting health protocols, "he wrote on his Twitter account.
The Russian vaccine arrives in Argentina
On the other hand, Argentina received on Thursday the first 300,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, with which it will begin to immunize its population next week.
In the midst of a great media display, the Minister of Health, Ginés González García, and the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, received the plane from Moscow at the Ezeiza airport on Thursday.
“There will be 118,000 people dedicated to vaccination.
It is one of the largest operations that have been carried out in history ”, said Ginés at a press conference.
The distribution of Sputnik V - which must be kept at -18 degrees - throughout the vast Argentine territory represents a great logistical challenge for the national and provincial governments.
According to the planned schedule, another five million doses of the Russian vaccine will arrive in January and 14.7 million more in February.
To be 95% effective against COVID-19, each person must receive two doses with an interval of 21 days between them.
The first to be immunized in Argentina will be those health workers with the highest risk and level of exposure to the virus.
Afterwards, you will continue with the rest of the essential personnel.
The Government assures that soon those over 60 years of age will also be able to receive the vaccine, the main risk group and one of the priorities of the vaccination campaign.
So far, however, this age group has not been authorized by Moscow, which has generated harsh criticism from the opposition.
The Executive headed by Alberto Fernández maintains conversations in parallel with other world manufacturers of vaccines.
It seemed that the first to be available would be Pfizer, as has happened in other American and European countries.
However, the negotiations are stuck and Ginés reiterated this Thursday that the multinational pharmaceutical company has "requirements that are not enforceable within Argentine law."
Authorized laboratories are running at full speed to manufacture all possible doses, but the available vaccines are still in short supply and there is "a global deficit," according to the Argentine Minister of Health.
Another of the agreements that are not yet closed is with the Chinese Sinopharm Group, in charge of another of the vaccines.