The Government announced that the Pfizer vaccines that arrive in the country will also be used for the combination of second doses

08/05/2021 11:55

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 08/05/2021 12:09

The secretary of National Health Access, Sandra Tirado, affirmed that the vaccines against the coronavirus from the American laboratory Pfizer, which will begin to arrive in the country from September, may also be used to complete the vaccination schedule of those who received the first component of Sputnik V.

"The Pfizer vaccines that will arrive will also be used for the combination of second doses,"

said the official, after Health Minister Carla Vizzoti announced the results of the vaccine combination studies on Wednesday.

In dialogue with Radio 

Futurock

, Tirado pointed out that one of the Government's objectives is "to achieve the greatest number of people with the complete scheme for this month."

Regarding the preliminary vaccine combination studies, the official explained that "

Pfizer has the same structure as Moderna

, therefore it is not necessary to do new studies to carry out combination vaccines."

After a year of delays and controversy, the government managed to reach an agreement with Pfizer.

However, the official clarified that "

the investigation to combine vaccines was not started

with

Sinopharm

, because their structure is different."

Regarding the combination of doses and how the logistical operation will be to apply a vaccine from another laboratory to a person who was inoculated with Sputnik V at the first opportunity, Tirado said that "the person will have the option to choose whether to get vaccinated with

Moderna or AstraZeneca

".

"In case you don't want to, you can wait for the second dose of Sputnik to arrive," he clarified.

Tirado tried to bring peace of mind to the people who were inoculated with Sputnik V more than three months ago and considered that "it has a composition like Johnson's, that is to say that with one dose antibodies are already generated and it is very effective."

After more than a year of controversy, the Government confirmed that the first doses of Pfizer will arrive in September and that the arrival of the 20 million doses agreed with the American pharmaceutical company will be completed before the end of the year.

"

Starting in September we hope to have the first doses of Pfizer

. And that between September and December the delivery of these 20 million doses that we have in this signed pre-agreement will be completed," said presidential advisor Cecilia Nicolini on Wednesday.

Minister Carla Vizzotti announced the vaccine combination at a conference on Wednesday.

Photo Germán García Adrasti

Although in the last hours it was known that the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna increased the prices of their vaccine, according to the data that emerged from an agreement with the European Union to which the British newspaper Financial Times had access, Nicolini refrained from giving details about purchase values.

The combination of vaccines is one of the responses to the lack of second doses of Sputnik V, just as concern about the Delta variant grows.

In this context, Russia assured that this month it will "completely resolve" the delivery of second doses of Sputnik V.

In addition, the Gamaleya Institute approved the local production of the second Sputnik element, so that in August 3 million doses of this product would be produced at the Richmond laboratory facilities, in Greater Buenos Aires.

AFG

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