“The Abdala vaccine was authorized by the Government of Mexico, however, it was not a simple bureaucratic purchase and sale procedure.” Photo: Damián Sánchez, Cuartoscuro
For Pascal and Edith
who are suffering the ravages of COVID-19
It is seen that the absence of official certification of the Cuban and Russian vaccine against the COVID-19 virus that the Government has purchased, distributed and applied to millions of Mexicans has been in the midst of an atmosphere of public disapproval and mistrust.
The lack of certification from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that recently approved the updated Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines coincides with an increase in cases and hospitalizations due to new variants of the virus.
Likewise, millions of Mexicans have decided to travel to the United States to receive the dose of these vaccines or wait for large Mexican pharmacies to have them for sale.
Fortunately, this week President López Obrador has reported in his morning conference that his Government will continue to apply the Abdala vaccines from Cuba and Sputnik from Russia, but also, when it comes to vaccines, he is not opposed to them being marketed like any other medicine and without no type of price regulation that ranges between 800 and 900 pesos per unit depending on the pharmacy, the Red Cross has even stepped in and its directors have said that they are going to offer the US vaccine at a lower price initially in the City and State of Mexico.
The neoliberal logic of the free play of supply and demand is imposed, of course, with the bias, they will say in the Government, that there are also free vaccines, they just are not certified by the relevant international organizations.
Why did the Mexican Government opt for Cuban and Russian vaccines without them being duly accredited to be supplied to the population when there was no emergency situation?
Jorge Alcocer, the Secretary of Health of the federal government, was questioned about this and his ambiguous response was that they had actually acquired nine million Abdala and Sputnik vaccines, but that 10.2 million doses still need to be acquired, which could be from other pharmaceutical companies. . Pfizer or Moderna? We will find out, and its consequences on the market.
Furthermore, he added, “several of these vaccines and those already mentioned cover the latest variants, which identify minimal changes in what this virus is.”
Anyone would expect that with the experience we had at the height of the pandemic – officially the virus killed more than 800,000 Mexicans and there are an unquantifiable number of people suffering from the consequences of the virus – they would surely opt for certified vaccines to avoid a new contagion.
Even more so, when the failed health strategy continues to provoke well-founded criticism to the extent that Dr. López-Gatell, former Undersecretary of Health, is pejoratively identified as “Doctor Death” for his excesses and errors committed during his performance as responsible and spokesman for public policy on pandemic matters.
There are those who affirm that there are political reasons behind the decision and they should not be ruled out, especially in the Cuban case, with whom the Government has an “excellent” relationship for reasons of ideological identity seasoned with a dose of Latin American solidarity.
The main argument put forward by consumers who have stood in long lines to purchase the Pfizer vaccine is associated with distrust due to not having WHO and FDA certification, but there is something else, it has to do with the clinical characteristics of some and other vaccines, according to the opinion of international specialists.
And everything indicates that this preference has to do with something that Jorge Alarcón himself highlighted when he referred to its scope considering that the SAR-CoV-2 virus mutates with extraordinary rapidity, which requires constant observation-updating of the vaccine and Apparently Cuban and Russian scientists are not doing it quickly.
Pfizer Mexico itself recently hinted at this in a statement when it noted: “The vaccine contains messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), which modified with nucleosides encodes the viral Spike (S) glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2. Its function is to provide instructions that the body uses to generate a harmless fragment of a protein from the virus that causes COVID-19.
“This protein triggers an immune response that helps protect the body and prevent COVID-19 infection in the future, the CDC details. The vaccine is 91.3 percent effective against disease with any symptoms up to six months after the second dose is administered. In addition, it was 100 percent effective in preventing serious cases, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “The Pfizer product showed 100 percent efficacy and robust antibody response in adolescents ages 12 to 15 with or without prior evidence of infection with the disease.”
To have a more overview and see its limits, just listen to the opinion of the doctor in Technical Sciences Miladys Limonta Fernández, project coordinator for the development of anti-COVID-19 vaccine candidates at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) of Cuba. who explained: “The effectiveness achieved by Abdala in its phase III is to avoid severity, or death, but it has not been proven that it prevents infection. ‘You are not protected with a single dose, as this will only be achieved between 15 and 28 days after completing the three-dose vaccination schedule, since the body needs time to reach maximum immunity values and raise titers. of antibodies.”
The Abdala vaccine was authorized by the Government of Mexico, however, it was not a simple bureaucratic purchase and sale procedure but the Government uses the results of a study carried out by the Spallanzani laboratory in Italy that would have demonstrated its effectiveness against the Ómicron variant and its derivatives. that are present in the country. “Previous studies, a Government source tells us, also demonstrated a significant additional strengthening of protection against Omicron with the Sputnik Light booster which, also, can be a universal booster for other vaccines… and prolong their protection against Omicron.”
In short, with this quick count, we can conclude that all vaccines have a level of effectiveness, however, there are vaccines to vaccines due to the challenge that the vaccine represents as up-to-date as possible to prevent the cases detected from escalating. in an exponential sense.
Ernesto Hernández Norzagaray
Doctor in Political Science and Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid. Professor-Researcher at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. Member of the National System of Researchers, Level I. Former President of the Board of Directors of the Mexican Society of Electoral Studies AC, former member of the Board of Directors of the Latin American Association of Political Science and of the Board of Directors of the Mexican Association of Political Science AC Collaborator of the Noroeste newspaper, Riodoce, 15Diario, Datamex. He has received journalism awards and is the author of multiple articles and several books on electoral politics.
2023-12-23 06:02:00
#Vaccines #vaccines
