New dose against Covid: who will start applying the third vaccine booster and when

The country’s health authorities yesterday agreed to proceed with the application of the third vaccination booster for COVID-19. The decision, as reported, reaches the population who received their second booster – or the fourth dose if the first two were not from Sinopharm – 120 days ago or more.

Through a press release, after the meeting of the representatives of the Ministries of Health in Federal Council of Health (Cofesa), it has been indicated that the call will start with the over 50s and people who have health problems that can increase the risk of suffering some complications in case of contracting the infection. Then, it will continue with the other groups, by risk or by age.

The vaccines to be used will be those of Modern y Pfizerboth from the mRNA platform, as it has been considered a priority in the world for anti-Covid reinforcements since the emergence of the delta and omicron variants, which led the last great wave of infections between the last months of last year and the summer of 2021-2022 in the southern hemisphere.

Starting from the announcement of Cofesa, in the coming days the districts will begin to implement the recall of the population through the channels used up to now, according to what is known.

The doses that are used in Argentina are not yet the bivalent formulations, which are produced from the original strain of the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan) and the omicron variant, which had already begun to be applied in countries such as United States of America. The Food and Drug Administration of that country (FDA, from its name in English) has authorized in recent days the bivalent versions of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech as a single booster dose, starting two months from the completion of the initial schedule (the first two doses) or from the last booster. Although Moderna’s product was licensed for a population of six years or older, Pfizer’s received regulatory clearance from a year earlier.

His arrival in the country is expected by the end of the year or in 2023, according to the companies. In Argentina “the monovalent is applied. And with these reinforcements with Moderna we have obtained protection against omicron “, he said, before the consultation, Paola Perzovmedical director of the Covid-19 vaccine area of Raffo Laboratorieslocal representative of that American laboratory.

Spreading the decision of the Cofesa, the Ministry of Health of the Nation He said he had “the necessary vaccines to carry out the strategy”. It is that the participation of the population in vaccinations was decreasing during the year.

The latest dose distribution for Covid-19 to the provinces was the first week of this month. Excluding the already over 5 million units donated to other countries because they would not have been applied locally before their expirationdistricts have received 117,191,912 doses since the campaign began in December 2020. To date, 93.7% have been applied, according to official records.

But how is the population vaccinated? An update, according to data from the Public Vaccination Monitor, shows how coverage has slowed and how there are more backward subgroups. Of the 41,026,081 people who started the vaccination, the majority (93%) completed the basic protection regimen. However, 53% got the first booster (third dose in the case of those who received the first two doses of Sinopharm) and 15% got the second booster.

The latest update of the acquired doses dates back to last August, when a shipment of 537,900 sera from the Pfizer laboratory arrived in the country, of which 269,100 units for adults and 268,800 for children. With that arrival, the national vaccination plan counted 128,730,530 units received by Sputnik V –including those delivered by the Richmond laboratory for a terminated contract-, Sinopharm, AstraZeneca and CanSino, in addition to those of the two American laboratories that are applied as reinforcements.

THE NATION