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get vaccinated now or wait for the bivalent


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The new version also protects against Ómicron and reduces infections. Other countries in the region have advanced to get it, but there is still no news from Argentina.

The willingness of the population to get vaccinated against Covid it has been reactivated in the last two weeks from increasingly marked increase in cases. However, there are people who doubt doing it now and are asking: should the fifth dose be given with a vaccine designed last year or would it be better to wait until the new formula is available in Argentina?

Any consulted expert will answer that if they have passed four months From the application of the previous dose it is advisable to take the vaccine available in the country. And what is available, for now, is always the same that has fueled the title since 2021, created for the virus originating in Wuhan.

This advice essentially responds to the fact that said vaccine continues to serve to counteract serious illness and death. The new vaccines, called bivalents, are designed to create tailor-made antibodies not only against that ancestral virus, but also against the latest so far recognized variant: omicron.

This means that the bivalent vaccine has greater efficiencyaccording to the studies published by the laboratories, a stop infectionsa power that the “old” vaccines have seen decreased while the virus was mutating.

Those who instead decide to wait for the arrival of the new generation of vaccines will make a bet with uncertain outcome. Common sense and the information available invite us to assume that today a vaccine against the Wuhan version in hand is worth more than another against the flying specificity of Omicron.

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The production process of the vials of the new Pfizer vaccine adapted to Omicron. Photo: AP

The truth is that no date yet so that bivalents are available in Argentina, as confirmed a clarion Sources from the Ministry of National Health. Two months ago, the version circulated that the arrival of these new doses would take place before the end of the year, but that horizon seems to have blurred.

they have already passed almost four months since the UK became the first country to approve the bivalent Covid vaccine on 15 August. And more than three since the US FDA did the same on Aug. 31. In South America several countries have made progress or intend to do so in the short term.

Chile began applying Pfizer’s bivalent vaccines on October 11. Y Moderna has announced that its bivalent vaccines will be available in Uruguay for the 2023 vaccination campaign.

The health agency Anvisa has authorized November 22 to Brazil the emergency use of two bivalent vaccines against Covid, produced by Pfizer. As announced, it will be used as a booster dose in people over 12 years of age, three months after the last application.

In Ecuador, the Adioum Group, through the pharmaceutical company Medicamenta Ecuatoriana, is working to obtain Moderna’s bivalent vaccine. In PeruFrom next year the bivalent dose against Covid will be applied, according to the Ministry of Health of that country.

photo" data-index="2"> The queue to get vaccinated in San Lorenzo.  Photo: Luciano Thieberger


The queue to get vaccinated in San Lorenzo. Photo: Luciano Thieberger

In the Argentina some of them are still distributed and not applied in the provinces 8 million vaccinations which continue to be useful despite new developments that may surpass the effectiveness of the original formula.

clarion also consulted the laboratories Pfizer and Moderna, who produce the bivalent vaccine, to corroborate the state of the conversation with Argentina. From Pfizer they limited themselves to saying that “the current agreement allows you to receive adapted versions of the vaccines”. At the end of this note, Moderna had not replied.

There is in all this process, at the same time, a certain degree of uncertainty linked to the speed with which the virus is transforming, a characteristic that seems to have stabilized only in 2022, with the homicronic supremacy. But what if a new variant emerged, as in the last few hours alerted the WHO What could happen – and soon become predominant?

That is, what would be the use of the bivalent vaccine specialized in Omicron in the event that this version of the Covid it was replaced shortly from another hitherto unknown variant?

This is why the greatest insistence of the experts has to do with strengthening vaccination to do so prevent the complications of a possible infectiongiven that the other stage of vaccination coverage, linked to the hoped-for “herd immunity”, in this unstable and unpredictable epidemiological context, seems to be a utopia for now.

photo" data-index="3"> Moderna's vaccine with the 2021 formula is the most available in the country today.  Photo: AP


Moderna’s vaccine with the 2021 formula is the most available in the country today. Photo: AP

The increase in vaccinated with the fifth dose in recent days partly reflects a response to that logic. While until last Tuesday there were almost none 208 thousand injections applied and the bill has hardly grown, since then until this Sunday, thanks to the skyrocketing number of Covid cases, the balance it rose to 331,500.

Although the authorization of the third booster for people over 50 years of age (for those who had received Sinopharm in the first scheme) began in the country at the end of July, 60 percent of the fifth doses administered so far in the country occurred in the last five dayswith an average of 24,600 every 24 hours.

Priority continues to be given to those over 50 – now previously inoculated with any brand – and to those who are immunosuppressed, even if as long as there is availability of doses they can advance even with the third booster everyone over the age of 18. However, there remains a significant deficit in the coverage of the first and second reinforcements.

that only the 53 percent of the population has the third dose and worse still, the 13 percent having the fourth, explains the immunological vulnerability of Argentines in the face of cases that do not stop increasing, with more and more pronounced jumps with each passing week.

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