Moderna’s vaccines, which have already been exhausted in Bogotá and Cartagena, are worrying.
The National Government had projected that 12.7 million doses of anticovid vaccines would arrive in September alone. However, by the end of the month, 9.5 million doses have been received. Colombia, then, waited for 3.2 million doses.
According to the records shared by the Administrative Department of the Presidency (Dapre), there were pharmaceutical houses that sent fewer doses than expected and others that, instead, sent more.
The laboratory that was left with the most vaccines owed to the country was Moderna. Although the Ministry of Health had budgeted that 4,080,000 anticovid doses from that pharmaceutical company would arrive by September, so far 689,220 doses have been received and only 332,640 doses have been distributed among territorial entities.
This implies that about 3.2 million people who require a second dose of this vaccine have not been able to access it.
There were also other shipments that did not occur or did not meet the expectations of the Ministry of Health. The Covax mechanism has yet to deliver 998,420 doses of Pfizer and Spain’s donation of AstraZeneca vaccines brought 159,400 fewer doses than budgeted.
However, the goal of acquired vaccines was not further behind due to the fact that there were shipments that were more robust compared to the projections made at the beginning of the month. For example, AstraZeneca and Janssen shipped 539,000 and 834,700 more anticovid doses than expected, respectively.
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The mess with Moderna
Last Saturday the Ministry of Health distributed 332,640 doses of Moderna, but in the warehouses that this ministerial portfolio has in Bogotá there are still another 356,580 that have not yet been distributed. This is because quality certificates for the vaccines were not yet ready.
Recently, the director of Dapre, Victor Muñoz, reported that it is expected that in the next few hours that documentation will be reviewed, so that the anticovid doses that are yet to be delivered throughout the country are released.
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In addition, He added that this Thursday, September 30, 1.4 million doses of Moderna could arrive that would be collected this Wednesday.
This announcement, however, came several days late. Muñoz had indicated that last Saturday, September 25, two batches of anticovid doses were to be collected in the city of Memphis, United States.
Likewise, several local authorities again reported a shortage of Moderna’s vaccines, since they had already injected those that the Ministry of Health had sent them since Saturday.
The Secretary of Health of Bogotá, Alejandro Gómez, said last Tuesday, September 28, that stocks of these vaccines had run out. “We are waiting for new deliveries of this vaccine because we are missing many people for their second doses,” he said.
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The Cartagena authorities also indicated that they did not have more doses of Moderna, since they were supplied to its inhabitants in almost 72 hours. Likewise, in Cali the authorities have already warned that they have little availability of these drugs.
And from the Ministry of Health of Medellín they told this medium that in the last cut of accounts the city had 10,835 doses of Moderna, of the 21,784 that the National Government had sent him.
Lack of vaccines
THE COLOMBIAN had already warned since last week that the acceleration of the arrival of vaccines was key to ensuring that 70% of the population is fully vaccinated against covid-19 before the end of the year, a goal that had been set by the own National Government.
“The more people who are unvaccinated, the more people are more likely to develop severe forms of COVID-19. This can lead to more hospitalizations and more cases of admissions to Intensive Care Units, which can also increase mortality ”, said Luciano Vélez Arroyave, a doctor specialized in. Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the University of Antioquia.
According to projections of the Ministry of Health, the fourth peak could arrive in October and would be driven by the delta variant, that gains strength with each new genomic report from the National Institute of Health.
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