Chilean authorities announced Thursday that a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccines will be administered in the country.
The announcement came on the same day that President Sebastián Piñera commemorated the start of the vaccination campaign, which has placed Chile at the head of Latin America and the world in the administration of these drugs. The president added that the application of the fourth dose would begin in February and that the necessary doses are already in place.
“Our fourth dose scheme will also be heterologous, that is, vaccinate with a different vaccine than the one that was given in the first and second doses,” said the Minister of Health, Enrique Paris, when making the announcement on Thursday .
“We managed to secure more than 40 million doses of vaccines for the year that is ending and we have also ensured, and this we told the president-elect, the necessary vaccines for next year,” said Piñera.
Leftist Gabriel Boric, 35, will take office in March.
Piñera reviewed the vaccination rates: 16.5 million people (in a country of 19 million people) and more than 2.5 million minors have already received their two doses, more than 10.2 million of Chileans already have their third booster dose and in the country it was one of the first to start vaccinating children between 3 and 5 years old. “They are very impressive figures,” said the president.
During the day, 1,504 new cases and a national positivity of 2% were reported.
In total, almost 1,800,000 people have been infected since the beginning of the pandemic and almost 39,000 have died in the country from the disease.
–
