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Chilean study reveals vaccine effectiveness

SANTIAGO (AP) – A study by the Chilean Ministry of Health (MINSAL) released on Tuesday showed a 5% drop in the effectiveness of Sinovac’s Chinese immunizer in preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19, while Pfizer’s US vaccine decreased by 3%.

The effectiveness in preventing death remains virtually the same with Sinovac, while Pfizer showed an 8.2% increase in the prevention of deaths, according to the report delivered by Dr. Rafael Araos, MINSAL advisor and former head of its Epidemiology department. .

Both vaccines maintain high levels of effectiveness to prevent hospitalizations and admission to Intensive Care Units (ICU).

The MINSAL analysis measured the effectiveness of the most used immunizers in Chile, Sinovac and Pfizer, exactly six months after the start of the massive Chilean vaccination plan on a sample that includes 8.6 million people inoculated with Sinovac and 4, 1 million with Pfizer. In all cases, more than 14 days had elapsed since the second dose.

This is the third effectiveness study carried out in Chile, a country of 19 million inhabitants that is among the nations in the world with the highest percentage of vaccinated population. As of July, 87% of the 15.2 million people seeking immunization had received the first dose and 80% had already completed the vaccination process.

Araos specified that Sinovac is effective in 58.4% of cases to prevent COVID-19 infection (compared to the 63.6% effectiveness shown in June), avoids hospitalization in 86% (87%), avoids in 90% admission to the ICU and prevents death in 86.4% of cases.

The Pfizer vaccine showed an effectiveness of 87.69% in the prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 (90.9%), maintains 97% to prevent hospitalization and 98% the arrival to the ICU, and prevents death in 100% of the cases, an effectiveness that was 91.8% in June.

For the first time, the effectiveness of the British Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine was measured in a sample of 2,720 people who were followed for the past two months. According to the study, it prevented 68.68% infections and 100% hospitalizations, admission to the ICU and death.

Six months after the start of mass vaccination, Chile has shown a sharp decline in infected. On Tuesday, it reported 616 new daily cases, a far cry from the 9,171 infected on April 9.

The decrease in infections in the South American country led the government to gradually lift quarantines in its 346 communes, except for four; it allows a great mobility of those who verify with a card that they have completed their immunization process; Restaurants, cinemas and even some discotheques have been opened, and regions with more than 80% of vaccinated inhabitants can delay the curfew by two hours, which in the rest of the country applies from ten at night to five in the morning.

However, the authorities are alert to an eventual expansion of those infected with the contagious Delta variant. The day before it was reported that there are 59 infected by this variant, of which 55 correspond to people who returned from abroad or were narrow cases of them, and four are the result of community transmission.

Chile registers 1.6 million infected since the beginning of the pandemic, in March of last year, and more than 35,000 deaths.

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