Natasha Niebieskikwiat
01/29/2021 4:57 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 01/29/2021 4:57 PM
The arrival this Thursday at the Santiago de Chile airport of a Latam plane with
two million vaccines
produced by Sinovac, a private Chinese laboratory that on Sunday will send another two million doses to Chileans, highlighted the strong latent questions about what happens in Argentina with the purchase of vaccines.
The question is why, amid the delays with the Russian vaccine,
the agreements with Beijing are still not closed
so that Argentina can start a massive vaccination campaign against COVID 19.
In addition to the doubts that have not yet been clarified about why the Government did not close an agreement with Pfizer BioNTech, there is also the lack of information about what happened to the contracts being negotiated with China.
In particular, it is not explained
why the purchase of 30 million vaccines from Sinopharm
, from the state-owned Chinese National Pharmaceutical Group,
did not materialize
.
As
Clarín
anticipated
, that laboratory already had 1 million doses ready to send to Argentina during January.
That shipment, it is known, did not arrive.
The unloading of the 2 million vaccines manufactured by the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, at the Santiago Airport.
Xinhua
In that case, as with the Pfizer vaccine,
the government even
sought out
3,000 volunteers
to conduct phase III clinical trials of the Sinopharm Group vaccine.
It did so in conjunction with the Elea Laboratory, which belongs in part to the Argentine businessman Hugo Sigman.
High government sources told
Clarín
that the commercial contract with Sinopharm is already in the Ministry of Health ready to be signed, and that this body is delaying it for various reasons.
One of them would be the disagreement over the price of the vaccine and delivery times.
There is also the version that Salud prefers to close before with the other laboratories and countries with which the provision of doses is negotiated and then go for the Chinese.
What was promised are 22.4 million doses with AstraZeneca and Oxford University;
20 million with the Russians for Sputnik V and 9 million with the United Nations Covax fund.
From the portfolio of Minister Ginés González García they pointed out that the first version is "absolutely false."
They affirm that talks with China are open both to acquire the Sinopharm vaccine, the Sinovac vaccine - the one that the Chileans bought - and also with CanSino, which is produced by Canada and China together.
Sabino Vaca Narvaja, Ambassador to China, together with President Alberto Fernández.
The Government also indicates that Chile had faster access to Sinovac because it is a privileged partner of China, being officially a member of the
One Belt one Road
initiative
(the trade and investment agreement also known as La Ruta de la Seda) , and they wonder if this is not a way to pressure Argentina to take the same step.
Argentina and China are strong allies, but Alberto Fernández delays signing his adhesion to this new Silk Road.
In the case of Sinovac, the Argentine talks had been established through Butantan, the laboratory that will produce them in Brazil.
Foreign Minister Felipe Solá met with his São Paulo executives, but the negotiation did not advance.
As
Clarín was
able to find out
after a consultation with Asian sources, the negotiation between Argentina and China at the state level for the Sinopharm vaccine is already concluded.
These conversations had begun with Ambassador Luis María Kreckler, a long-time diplomat who was displaced from the Argentine embassy in Beijing.
Today, Ambassador
Sabino Vaca Narvaja
is in charge of the headquarters
- the Senate did not discuss his specifications but the Chinese Foreign Ministry has already given him their approval - but in Buenos Aires they still do not close the contract.
The decision is made by the Ministry of Health, which is crossed by some inmates.
Deputy Minister Carla Vizzoti was the one who negotiated with the Russians the purchase of Sputnik V, whose quantity is still insufficient for Argentine vaccination.
20 million were stipulated purchased from the Russian Investment Fund, 5 million of which were to come in January.
But only 520,000 doses arrived, 10 percent.
And it is not known who will be able to apply the necessary two-dose cycle.
