Between February, which began the process, and December 2021, 64.6 million doses were administered. 55.4% of the population already has a complete scheme. Historical!
Between February 17 and December 31, 2021, an average of 8,502 people were vaccinated every hour in Colombia. This means that 141.7 vaccines were delivered per minute and more than two per second. This is shown by the vaccination report of the Ministry of Health, according to which last year the country supplied 64,690,489 anticovid doses in the 317 days of the National Vaccination Plan (PNV).
To ensure the success of the immunization against covid-19, the most ambitious in the history of Colombia, it was decided to diversify purchases and acquire anticovid doses through five pharmaceutical houses: Astrazeneca, Janssen, Pfizer, Moderna and Sinovac. In addition, it was negotiated with the Covax mechanism, the strategy of the World Health Organization (WHO), to guarantee equitable vaccination.
The first negotiations resulted in the purchase of 70 million anticovid doses by 2021. However, over time this figure was increasing and, according to the Minister of Health, Fernando Ruiz, told EL COLOMBIANO in a recent interview, the country it has “insured” 97 million vaccines.
For now, 79.7 million doses against covid-19 have arrived at the hands of the Ministry of Health. And, as revealed by Victor Muñoz, the director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency (Dapre), in the short term it is expected that five million vaccines from the Covax mechanism will arrive and about 2 million more anticovid doses from Pfizer donated by the government of Germany, in addition to the 5.6 million doses that will be sent by Spain, as revealed this Sunday by President Iván Duque.
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A historic effort
In addition to the acquisition of anticovid doses, to protect the greatest number of people with vaccination, all the actors of the health system had to make a monumental effort in 2021.
“It was a very good teamwork, articulated, which is reflected in a successful PNV, which has shown very good vaccination coverage at the national level,” said Carlos Trillos, epidemiologist and professor at the Universidad del Rosario. Until last December 31, the country managed that 28.1 million people – 55.4% of the population – had their complete anticovid vaccination scheme, at least 10 million have a half vaccination scheme and about 3, 3 million have received an anticovid booster dose (see infographic).
For her part, Dionne Cruz, president of the Colombian Public Health Association, assured that during the PNV the “strength of human talent in health was exposed, especially the work of nurses and nursing assistants, who have been at the forefront of the vaccination. I think they have excelled ”.
However, he noted that the health system in general “needs to work on the primary health care strategy, which is so important for prevention.”
Cruz also recalled that the country did not achieve the goal of anticovid vaccination that it had originally set: to give its complete scheme to about 35 million people, equivalent to 70% of the population.
However, Minister Ruiz told this newspaper that the vaccination approach in Colombia and the world was modified and focused more on booster vaccination, which seeks to provide more protection to populations at risk against the appearance of new variants of the coronavirus.
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Lives saved
According to Luis Jorge Hernández, Director of Research at the Los Andes University School of Medicine, the Ministry of Health showed sufficient evidence to conclude that the covid vaccination in the country was effective and reduced hospitalization and mortality figures. .
In fact, data revealed by the Directorate of Epidemiology and Demography of the Ministry of Health shows that the unvaccinated have shown a risk of dying from covid-19 up to 132.8 times higher compared to people who were vaccinated.
According to the experts consulted by this newspaper, the effectiveness of vaccination can also be seen in the behavior that the pandemic has had during the last increase in cases. Although last week the number of infections reached figures that had not been recorded since last July, the number of deaths remains stable.
Without going any further, the latest report showed that there were 11,318 new covid cases, but the deaths were 40 (see Report). On this point, Dr. Trillos pointed out: “We must observe this behavior in more detail in the coming weeks, given that deaths occur two to three weeks later.”
And he concluded that in countries like the United Kingdom, which have anticovid vaccination rates above 70%, it has been observed that mortality did not grow in proportion to the increase in infections.
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Vaccination in the world
For the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) the word of the year in 2020 was “confinement”, a noun that represented a deterioration in global public health, and deep economic crises for millions of families.
But, as if it were humanity’s revenge against the virus, the word for 2021 was “vaccine.” As of December 31, according to data from Our World in Data, close to 9 billion vaccines against covid-19 had been applied worldwide.
The astronomical figure, however, is not yet an absolute insurance against the virus and revenge, so it is still not definitive. When they designed their vaccination plans, the governments of different countries – including Colombia – set out to vaccinate 70% of their inhabitants against the virus to obtain herd immunity, but the plans changed with the appearance of new variants of the coronavirus.
While most covid vaccines continue to offer protection against hospitalization and death from covid -which is their main objective-, there is scientific evidence that variants such as delta and omicron reduce the effectiveness of anticovid doses when it comes to infections mild.
The delta variant caused one after another countries to start applying anticovid booster doses, which in the case of double vaccination schemes was the third injection.
Later, the massive diffusion of the omicron variant caused several countries to break their historical records of positives for covid-19.
In the last week, the United States reported more than 400,000 infections a day, England more than 189,000, France more than 200,000 and Australia more than 32,000. The world as a whole also broke its contagion mark on December 29, when the World Health Organization reported more than 1.3 million coronavirus infections in a single day.
The new panorama of the pandemic has prompted several countries to consider the possibility of applying a new booster dose of anticovid vaccines. And in Israel, which was also one of the pioneer countries in the application of third doses, that alternative has already been established.
After conducting medical trials on about 6,000 people, the health authorities of that country concluded that the immunosuppressed will be able to access a fourth booster anticovid dose in Israeli territory, where the case of a person who contracted the disease was also identified in the last hours. flu virus and coronavirus at the same time – known as Flurona.
Although WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom said the end of the pandemic could come in 2022, he has also warned that booster vaccinations could torpedo that achievement if vaccine supplies are cut off from poorer countries.
“We are seeing some nations carry out blanket booster programs at a time when only half of WHO Member States have met the goal of immunizing 40% of their population by the end of 2021 due to uneven global supply.” noted Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
This unequal access to vaccines increases the risk of new variants appearing in countries with low immunization rates. For this reason, the WHO has insisted, time and again, that in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, no one will be safe until everyone is safe. Will that moment come in 2022? .
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After a joint effort, the country managed to apply at least one anticovid dose to about 38 million people. In the world, it is necessary to promote an equitable distribution of vaccines.
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