Countries of the American Continents face vaccine inequality against COVID-19

Photo: Reuters

The American Continents face great inequality in the vaccine distribution process as some of the countries have not received a dose of COVID vaccines while the others have already inoculated more than 5% of the population.

The countries like the USA and Chile have been the leaders of the vaccination campaign while the countries like the Dominican Republic haven't received a single dose.

More than 1.5 people in Chile have been vaccinated with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine since the massive immunization began on February 3.

Chile, which began vaccinating intensive care health personnel on December 24 and mass inoculation last week with those over 90, administers 5.58 doses per 100 inhabitants, according to data from the University of Oxford.

This number, experts say, is much higher than the world average of 1.9 doses per 100 inhabitants and the 1.94 doses in Brazil, 1.18 in Argentina, and 0.56 in Mexico.

Even inside the United States, the vaccination has been focused on "The States." The Us colonies also called extensive territories have been lagging in the vaccination campaign.

According to specialists, the main problem lies in the lack of a clear vaccination strategy at the federal level, a claim that the administration of US President Joe Biden has tried to correct in recent weeks.

In fact, data from Johns Hopkins University warn that the gap between states is deepening for reasons such as differences between public health systems, coordination between governments and medical centers, some mistrust about vaccines and management in the distribution.

Biden himself announced this Thursday that his country will have enough doses to vaccinate almost its entire population, some 330 million people, against COVID-19 at the end of July, after reaching new agreements with Pfizer and Moderna.

Although Latin America was filled with hope with the start of vaccination at the end of December in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Costa Rica, the forecasts of most governments have not been fulfilled due to the non-compliance of the pharmaceutical companies with which they signed contracts or because of the logistical difficulties they have encountered.

Thus, for example, Mexico, which was one of the first countries in the world to apply the Pfizer and BioNTech drug on December 24, has so far only received around 767,000 doses, which prevented its goal of immunizing all staff. a first-line physician with 1.4 million units in January.

On February 10, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks of Mexico authorized the emergency use of COVID vaccines from Chinese pharmaceutical companies CanSino and Sinovac to try to take another step in that direction.

Thus, the country, of 126 million inhabitants, has pre-purchase agreements for 34.4 million doses of Pfizer, 77.4 million of the British AstraZeneca, 35 million of CanSino, 24 million of the Russian Sputnik V, and 51.5 million of the Covax platform, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO). The problem now is that they arrive at the agreed times.

Also, in Brazil, the second country in America most affected by the pandemic, after the United States, the Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, declared this Thursday that "the entire population" will be immunized this year and that, although the Amazonian variant of covid-19 is "three times" more contagious, existing vaccines fight it.

With 236,200 deaths and almost 10 million cases, the minister said he expects "50% of the population" of the country, of 210 million inhabitants, to be vaccinated in the first half of 2021 and the other 50% during the second.

However, several senators questioned this claim since, so far, Brazil has only obtained 11 million doses that began to be applied last month and that in some cities are about to run out.

Another that has had setbacks in vaccination is Argentina, which this Friday reached 50,029 deaths from covid-19, a disease that 2,015,496 people have already contracted in that nation.

Argentina will have a total of 610,000 doses of each component, far from the 5 million that, according to the contract signed with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, it was expected to receive in January and the 14.7 million expected in February, and at a great distance from countries such as Chile. with its 1.5 million vaccinated.
 

Publish : 2021-02-15 01:36:00

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