Argentina begins production of Sputnik V 1:41
(CNN Spanish) -
Argentina has received 18,931,945 vaccines against covid-19 until this Wednesday.
Every time a batch arrives in the country, the government announces it and then communicates the distribution to the provinces so that those doses can be applied.
However, there are 900,345 vaccines whose distribution was not informed by the authorities.
"This generates suspicions and suspicions," said the former Minister of Health of Argentina, Adolfo Rubinstein.
For his part, the current Undersecretary of Health Strategies, Juan Manuel Castelli, denied that there are "suspicions" about the doses whose distribution was not informed.
Controversy in Argentina due to Alberto Fernández's phrase about Mexicans, Brazilians and Argentines
Castelli said those vaccines were separated to form a critical stock.
"They are vaccines that we keep momentarily for a fortuitous circumstance or to respond to an emergency situation somewhere."
According to the official, currently there are "less than 50,000" the doses reserved in the critical stock.
He explained that the volume is not cumulative, but as more vaccines arrive, the new items allow the release of doses that were previously stored.
The rest, according to Castelli, have already been distributed, but it is not clear to which provinces they were delivered, how many there are or when this happened.
advertising
Credit: JUAN MABROMATA / AFP via Getty Images
Castelli could not specify the exact number of doses kept in critical stock, but clarified that of the batches that arrive in the country there is no fixed percentage of vaccines that must be reserved.
He also said that these vaccines can remain without distribution "about 12 or 14 days."
"It doesn't make any sense to save vaccines right now," Rubinstein said.
While, for his part, President Alberto Fernández had acknowledged on May 20: "We are going through the worst moment of the pandemic."
Argentina reaches 4 million cases: that's how fast the pandemic grew in the country
The figure of 900,345 is the number of vaccines that the government did not officially report their distribution on at least 11 occasions, according to statements from the Presidency and the Ministry of Health.
An example of such opportunities is that of April 19, when a batch with 800,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine arrived, but the government announced that it would distribute 654,000.
On the remaining 146,000 doses, he did not provide information.
Dr. Roberto Debbag, vice president of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectology, clarified that “there is always a quantity of vaccines that is reserved in case there is an epidemic outbreak and that is used for control.
Now, when we are in a pandemic, it is already the pandemic ”.
Unlike Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia do not reserve vaccines in critical stock, representatives of their respective governments confirmed to CNN.
"At no time were vaccines in critical stock in an amount that prevented continuing vaccinating," said the undersecretary of Health Strategy of Argentina.
On the contrary, for Dr. Debbag this "delayed the vaccination process" in the country and, consequently, the fall in the number of deaths from coronavirus.
Along the same lines, the former Minister of Health Rubinstein said that "every vaccine that is not applied and that is applied later" has a detriment.
Credit: Ricardo Ceppi / Getty Images
Faced with these remarks, Castelli defended the health strategy of having a critical stock of vaccines.
According to him, it is also important to have a number of doses reserved to be able to respond to eventual emergencies or problems in distribution.
How many times did they have to respond with the critical stock?
"I can't tell you exactly how many times," Castelli said.
This contrasts with the message of President Fernández: "Every contagion should hurt us, every death should hurt us."
According to official figures, Argentina reached 4 million infections by covid-19.
It is the ninth country in the world with the highest number of infected, according to data from John Hopkins University.
The death toll from coronavirus exceeded 82,000 according to the same source.
Meanwhile, vaccination with at least one dose does not reach 33% of the population.
The health system is stressed and its workers exhausted.
Coronavirus Vaccine