Maria Bethlehem Etchenique
04/01/2021 18:56
Clarín.com
Cities
Updated 04/01/2021 18:56
-Sir did you have Covid?
- Yes.
- When were you discharged?
- January 12.
Jorge was inside a cubicle, sitting,
with his shirt already rolled up
when the whole process that until then had been agile - getting to the San Lorenzo club, forming a line and being called - began to slow down.
The nurse who seconds before was preparing the injection stopped and
called a colleague to ask whether or not she could administer the vaccine.
The concern did not happen because of Jorge's age (79 years old), nor because of his clinical conditions, but because of the period that had elapsed
between his date of discharge from the Covid and that day
, Wednesday, March 31.
"They told him that it was not enough, that it had to be
at least three months
and that he was not going to be vaccinated. He got very angry," says his daughter, Valeria Dotro.
"He had already been accumulating anxiety. For a year of difference he had been left out of the previous call, which was from the 80s, and he
wanted to be vaccinated.
In addition, it disturbed him to have bothered my brother, who had arranged his schedules to accompany him."
Valeria registered her father on Monday, March 29.
In the form, he selected the day, time and different locations where he would receive the first dose.
The confirmation of the shift came by mail.
Before registration, and especially on Monday and Tuesday, the Dotro family consulted different doctors, including their father's family doctor, about the
recommended window of time for the application of the vaccine
.
In the City, vaccination has already started for those over 75 years of age.
How much time should pass between discharge and the application of the first dose for those who had Covid.
Photo: Luciano Thieberger
"For us it was also a question and they gave us different answers: some said one month, others two from hospital discharge. But
we did not know that this period existed
,
" he
says.
Valeria still regrets that her father found out like this, seconds before being injected.
Today, in Argentina and in the world, vaccines are the best opportunity to improve life.
The expectations of a person and their entire family revolve around one dose.
In the site
argentina.gob.ar
the information is.
But it is not easy to find it.
It appears in content published on Friday, March 26, when it was reported that Minister Carla Vizzotti and health ministers across the country agreed to defer the application of the second dose.
The text reads: "In those people with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19, it is proposed to postpone the application of the first dose of vaccine
between three and six months after clinical discharge."
But that same data is not in the frequently asked questions about the vaccination campaign.
This section only explains that people who received a treatment of "monoclonal antibodies against SARS-COV-2" or "convalescent plasma" must wait at least 90 days to receive the vaccine.
There,
the reference is particular and not general.
The dissimilar indications may be due to the fact that it is a new criterion,
agreed by the Federal Health Council
at the same meeting in which it was decided to postpone the second dose.
But, six days after that determination,
access to this information should be easier.
"It
would have to appear on the registration form.
One completes many fields but nowhere is it warned about this. They should write it down in some way, put up a poster, an observation, something," says Valeria.
Behind the decision to separate the medical discharge from the vaccine, there is a
sanitary criterion.
"The strategy is to establish a priority in the application of the first dose", says Gabriel Battistella, undersecretary of Primary, Ambulatory and Community Attention of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health.
"It is
not yet known exactly how long the antibodies last
in a person who had Covid, but that three-month margin was decided because we are sure that in that period
the level of antibodies is not low."
Omar Sued, infectologist and president of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases, adds: "The antibodies produced by the disease have
a protection of more than 80%
, which lasts
between four and eight months
.
"
People with severe symptoms and the youngest people produce the most antibodies.
"The criterion applied is that the person who had the infection is
protected within that three-month period
and the vaccine is used for another person who does not have that protection. And only after three months is the person who had the infection vaccinated with a dose that reaches the country. "
SC
Look also
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Vaccinations for people over 70 in the City: since when and how should they register