A new complaint tarnishes the management of the Ministry of Health. This time it is what has to do with bivalent vaccines for covid-19. According to a complaint made by the representative to the Chamber of the Democratic Center, Andrés Forero, these biologicals that had been expected since last year “arrived late to the country” and of the 757,400 that are available, only 193 would have been applied to the first of December.
(Also read: Government will begin the distribution of bivalent vaccines against covid-19)
The data arises from a right of petition that Forero sent to the Minsalud itself, and where they respond that the bivalent vaccines arrived in Colombia between September 28 and October 2, that is, more than two months ago, and that until To date, only a total of 193 have been applied, most of them in Barranquilla (96) and Amazonas (60). The most worrying thing is that of the available doses, a total of 502,200 expire this month, starting next Saturday, December 16.
Disastrous.@GA_Jaramillo It brought bivalent vaccines against COVID late and has delayed its application.
They arrived between 09/28 and 10/2 and only 2 months later their territorial distribution began.
As of 01/12, only 190 of 757,400 had been applied and they begin to expire next week. pic.twitter.com/qmgHZXdzmu
— Andrés Forero CD #1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣ (@AForeroM) December 7, 2023
The complaint was made by representative Andrés Forero, from the Democratic Center.
Juan Camilo Díaz. House of Representatives
Bivalent vaccines, which in this case are from the Moderna pharmaceutical company, are essential to confront the SARS-CoV-2 virus in three prioritized groups: patients with comorbidities, people over 60 years of age and health workers. However, since the arrival of Minister Carolina Corcho, different actors in the sector had been warning that the country urgently needed them and they had not been able to be acquired.
(Also read: Bivalent vaccines, a race to achieve prolonged immunity)
However, after the arrival of the biologicals, between September and October, the Ministry of Health reported that their application would begin the second week of November. But as of December 1, almost a month later, according to their own figures, only 0.02% of the available vaccines have been distributed.
“In terms of promotion and prevention, the management of Health Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo is disastrous. It took almost a year to bring the bivalent vaccines against Covid-19 and when they arrived they were delayed in their application. The vaccines were already within the framework of a contract signed by the previous Government, but they only arrived until the end of September and beginning of October. We do not know if this is due to Minister Jaramillo’s anti-vaccine bias or simply due to incompetence that has been systematically de-technized,” Forero said.
EL TIEMPO consulted the Ministry of Health about the reasons for the delay in the application of these vaccines, but at the close of this publication a response had been obtained.
However, on November 7, the Ministry itself had indicated in a statement that “given that the protection of the highest-risk population is a priority for the National Government, the Ministry of Health established the dispatch schedule for the bivalent vaccine between November 2023 and April 2024. This, taking into account that in Colombia a total of 6,384,298 confirmed cases of covid-19 have been registered since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data from the Public Health Surveillance System (Sivigila), with a cut-off date of October 28, 2023. This situation has left, so far in 2023, a total of 723 deaths, with the group of those over 60 years of age being the most affected, with 647 deaths (89.5% )”.
(Read also: Covid-19: what are bivalent vaccines and what is their objective?)
Some actors in the health system had already warned about the lack of bivalent vaccines. Just yesterday the Colombian Society of Pediatrics, the Colombian Association of Infectious Diseases and the Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology expressed, through a statement, their concern about the “insufficient number of doses of bivalent or even updated vaccines against covid-19 to cover to the prioritized adult population.”
“We request the management of vaccines for these population groups and, in addition, in accordance with the international guidelines set forth by the WHO and other expert groups, we recommend the use of updated vaccines taking into account the mutation of the virus and circulation of new variants,” they noted. the three organizations.
We express our serious concern regarding the non-availability of COVID-19 vaccines for children, adolescents and pregnant women and the insufficient number of doses of bivalent or even updated COVID-19 vaccines to cover the prioritized adult population. pic.twitter.com/qlCp2nuZMa
— SocPediatria (@SocPediatria) December 6, 2023
They also warned that the lack of conventional biologicals for covid-19 would also be affecting children, adolescents and pregnant women.
EDWIN CAICEDO | HEALTH UNIT EDITOR
@CAICEDOUCROS | @HEALTH
2023-12-07 19:22:00
#denounce #bivalent #vaccines #arrived #late #country #expire #week
