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The Ministry of Health (Some time) approved the protocol for the application of the bivalent vaccine against COVID-19 in Peru which will start in 2023. The sector had already anticipated that the inoculation of this drug would give priority to vulnerable groups.
To date the figures of coronavirus in the country are not increasing, so the health sector estimates that the the fifth wave of COVID-19 will end in the middle or the end of next January. However, this panorama of the fall in the pandemic trend does not imply that the work will not continue vaccination process against this disease.
READ MORE: They note that nearly 500,000 doses of the bivalent vaccine arrived in Peru in November
“Not yet [podemos confirmar que terminó] because the criteria are not met at the CDC. Yes, there is a significant drop in the number of cases. Every week there are fewer cases, but we must have at least three or four weeks with a number of cases. So, those criteria are still not met. We should probably already end this fifth wave by mid-January or the end of January“, emphasized the head of the National Center for Epidemiology, Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Peru, César Munayco, in an interview with TV Peru.
“They were enter an endemic phase and that is why we must prioritize some measures such as increasing vaccination coverage against the COVID-19 and promote the use of masks indoors,” the official added.
READ ALSO: The fifth wave of COVID-19 in Peru would end in mid to late January 2023
In this line, the Minsa has announced the arrival of one and a half million doses of bivalent vaccine in Peru for next January, but the deputy minister of health benefits and insurance of the Ministry of Health (MINSA), Henry Rebaza, reported that it was noted during the handover that almost half a million of these drugs had already arrived in the country in last November.
He added that due to the arrival of this drug he was not notified, so the current management has decided remove the entire leadership team of the National Center for Strategic Health Resource Delivery (Cenarion).
“We, in the transfer process which has not yet finished, have noted that a batch of approximately 500,000 vaccines has already arrived in November, that by adding to the lot that is about to arrive we will be able to have the guarantee of progressing”, he pointed out.
Population groups that will be the first to be vaccinated
With more than one and a half million doses of the bivalent vaccine against COVID-19the Minsa has already planned what the start of inoculation for this process will be for 2023. This is what the protocol indicates:
| TARGET POPULATION | APPLICATION RANGE |
|---|---|
| Age range: – From 70 years and older – From 60 to 69 years old – Target population, sequentially according to Minsa programming. |
Two months* |
| Population at risk: – Healthcare personnel – For people with risk factor – Pregnant population – Cancer population |
Two months** Two months Two months*** 3 months**** |
will be vaccinated a adult over 60 years old with dose of bivalent reinforcement
after being inoculated with the third dose as a minimum requirement, with an interval of 2 months. (**) The health personnel to be vaccinated, he must have an initial vaccination schedule (four doses), and then thebivalent booster dose
. (***) The pregnant population must have completed 12 weeks of dosing applicationbivalent vaccine
. (****) You can be vaccinated with bivalent booster dose
after completing cancer treatment.
What is the bivalent vaccine against COVID-19? Natalia Vargas, an infectious disease specialist at the National Institute of Health, indicated that this new type ofbivalent vaccines
s contain two messenger RNA (mRNA) components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The first is against the original virus which was identified in Wuhan, China in 2019, and the other is a common mRNA component between
the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages of the omicron variant. According to the infectologist, the bivalent vaccine not only will it avoid hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths, but alsoit could slow disease transmission or asymptomatic infection
. As is well known, to better combat the omicron variant, responsible for the majority of COVID-19 infections worldwide, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the application of the newbivalent vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech
which will provide greater immunity against the coronavirus.
The new vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, the FDA reported are a booster dose that can be given to anyone who has had the vaccine or previous booster for more than two months. The vaccine Modern is licensed for use as a single booster dose in people over the age of 18, while the Pfizer-BioNTech
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