The Government changes the vaccination goal for the end of 2021

With less than a month to go until the end of 2021, in the middle of his visit to the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia, the President of the Republic, Iván Duque, once again referred to the issue of vaccination against covid-19 and pointed out some changes in the goals proposed for the end of the year, both for the first and second doses.

The president assured that Since a total of 60 million have already been applied, the vaccination goal for the first dose is 80% in the national territory.

“Colombia is making progress in first doses and I think we could say that a goal that we have established is to be able to reach almost 80% of the country with one dose ending this year, in second doses we have set the goal of reaching 70%, but we have realized that re-growth situations are occurring in some cities in people who have not had reinforcement and it forces us to prevent mortality, ”said Duque.

However, regarding the second dose, he commented that the initial goal will drop by 5%. This is because priority will be given to people who need the third dose, since they are patients with a higher probability of contagion.

“Very surely where we are going to migrate is to reach 80% with one dose and close the year with 65 or 70% of double doses. I prefer to sacrifice a little more second doses, but protect people who may be more exposed and who require this booster; it is a trend that we are looking at the world but this is not to get away from the goal “Duque noted.

Let us remember that the Colombian Ministry of Health announced that another measure on immunization issues will be that foreigners who transit through the national territory in border areas, regardless of their immigration status, will be vaccinated against covid-19 with the purpose of mitigating the risk of future outbreaks in these municipalities.

This was confirmed by the director of Epidemiology and Demography of the Health portfolio, Julián Fernández, who explained that this measure was adopted through Decree 1671 of 2021 with the intention of minimizing the risk of contagion in border towns, due to low coverage that occurs in neighboring countries.

“It is a step towards the comprehensive protection of migrants, not only with a vocation of permanence -which had already been included in the National Vaccination Plan-, but also, It allows to include these migrants who enter the country, transiting to other regions of the continent or who cross intermittently to side and side of the border for economic reasons, to seek health services or because they have binational families”, Said the official.

Likewise, he pointed out that through these strategies it is sought to protect the lives of Colombian citizens and the migrant population, especially those from Venezuela, a country where low immunization coverage is reported and with which Colombia shares the largest extension of the border. and transit of people.

In this sense, he explained that preferably single-dose biologics will be used for this purpose, such as the Janssen vaccine, with the aim of guaranteeing the greatest coverage with a complete vaccination scheme with a single dose, indicating that the records will be carried out in the same point of vaccination with the intention of avoiding “reprocessing” and the search for each one of the immunized migrants.

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