“We have already placed 3,948 vaccines (out of a total of 5,400 Sputnik V doses that arrived in Tucumán). This means that 77.8% of the list of health personnel is vaccinated, ”the Minister of Health anticipated in an exclusive interview with LA GACETA, Rossana Chahla. “We have also studied the effects, let’s not say adverse, but symptoms that can appear in vaccinated people. (see chart separately). In general, they are exactly the same effects as those that occur with the flu vaccine and with others as well, ”says the minister who has led the fight against the pandemic in Tucumán since it began.
– What is the strategic planning that the province has in mind to deal with this second wave of infections?
– Strategic planning is, on the one hand, focused on border control, especially with foreigners, to be able to detect and find that we do not have the new strain of coronavirus. On the other hand, we plan to deepen all the active search actions for symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. We also want to extend vaccination to people over 60, who are the most vulnerable. And to be able to vaccinate, to the extent that we have vaccines, people between 18 and 59 years old with risk factors.
– What will happen to the other pathologies that are not covid?
-We are not going to neglect the other pathologies. Although we continue to attend in the hospital, many people stopped going or having the controls for fear of contagion inside the hospitals. For that we are going to provide a scheduled consultation, through a new call center. People will not go to queue to take turns, but they will be all external consulting shifts. All specialties will have scheduled shifts, respecting all protocols, so that there are no people in the waiting room. We are going to give time between one patient and another to prevent them from getting infected. This is our greatest challenge, which we are already doing for all specialties.
– How will you work with early detection?
– We are going to work a lot in the prevention of women’s cancers, such as neck, breast and other cancers. We program an active strategy with the HPV test (Human Papillomavirus) through a self-collection of the sample that will then be searched at home. The scheduled shifts for mammography and breast control ultrasound will be given. With the same system of self-taking the person obtains the sample for the study of colon cancer. With this we say that the strategy is divided into three parts: on the one hand, on the Covid issue: border strategy, search for feverish people, increase in swabs, active search for feverish, symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. With what is not covid, scheduled shifts for all medical specialties. And with regard to oncology pathology, we are going to actively search for cervical cancer, scheduled shifts for mammograms and colon cancer detection, which are the most frequent.
– What balance do you make of 2020?
– Today, after the pandemic has claimed 1,600,000 victims in the world, and more than 71,000,000 million infected, it is impossible to compare the health impact of this with other epidemics. It is the largest health disaster in history in terms of lives that were lost and the physical, psychological, social and economic consequences.
It was very difficult at first to start working quickly in a scenario where the virus was not yet present, nor were there any experiences in the world to prevent the spread, which already showed a high degree of transmission and fatality in the elderly and those with comorbidities. In March we had the first case in the Province, the virus had reached our lands.
-How was work?
– Our greatest challenge was to develop rapidly, but with tracers of technical and scientific efficacy and efficiency, epidemiological surveillance: border health, strengthening the sector, training and re-functionalization of human resources, achieving more therapy beds, acquiring and installing respirators, preparing isolation units so as not to saturate hospitals, control the entry of people who came from abroad and then from other provinces that already had viral circulation, install in the citizens the responsibility for biosafety regulations, strengthen the Public Health laboratory … and I could go on mentioning this marathon reconversion of a Health System, which had to adapt to mitigate the damages of the pandemic.
– What did it mean to have the COE?
– The province constituted the COE, chaired by our governor, where all public and private sectors were represented, without political flags. It was a sample of success of the joint work and with a single objective, to be together as Tucuman to ensure that the impact of the pandemic causes us the least possible damage. Hopefully this structure will last and we will be able to work in the same way beyond the pandemic. The COESalud was the multidisciplinary team that from day one accompanied me in logistics and in monitoring the evolution of the pandemic. Without these teams this daily fight would have been impossible. However, the even more risky and exposed burden was borne by doctors, nurses, cleaning personnel, biochemists, pharmacists, kinesiologists, technicians and other personnel, who assumed with extreme responsibility and vocation the care of patients. Today they are our heroes, our example and our pride. On this front of the battle we lost loved ones who left us great pain with their departure. It was the most painful side of this scenario of daily uncertainties.
– What was the worst epidemiological moment in Tucumán?
Tucumán had a high curve, 1500 cases per day, which lasted for three days and began its decline. Those three days were the longest of my life and of all the personnel in the trench. The work was so intense to avoid more ascent in the curve, that we went to look for the positive cases in the neighborhoods, in the pedestrian, in the essential work groups. We did not want to see anyone else die, we needed to detect the asymptomatic so that the contagion does not continue. In a non-stop work, we isolate thousands of people from Tucumán in isolation centers to prevent further hospitalizations and spread. And that day, when cases began to decline, we redoubled our search strategies for feverish and asymptomatic patients. Our staff worked tirelessly.
– What do you expect from now on?
– Today closing the year, we could read a more hopeful horizon due to the opportunity of the vaccine, although we know that we have a long way to go to have herd immunity in the population. The appearance of the second wave in European countries puts us once again in a situation of extreme vulnerability, but with different lessons, with greater scientific and technical knowledge and we will once again be advancing strategies to minimize the damage of this unprecedented and mutilating rights pandemic.
Adverse effects
They left at 24/48 hours
Among 3,948 vaccinated in Tucumán against covid, only 11.5% had adverse symptoms:
.
11.5% had asthenia
A slight tiredness or weakness.
11.2% felt headache
I mean, headache.
8.8% reported discomfort
A general feeling, poorly defined.
7.8%, little muscle strength
It was characterized as weakness and low strength.
6.8% had a fever
In minor or major school.
6.6%, Arthralgia
He felt pain in his joints.
6.2% chills and 6% flu-like syndrome
No symptoms lasted more than a day or two.
– .
