Health ministers across the country decided to start vaccinating children from 3 to 11 years of age against covid | Following approval of the Sinopharm vaccine for boys

The vaccination of boys from 3 to 11 years old will start immediately – it could be next Monday the 12th – although logically first with those with previous illnesses. Then, it will continue with the 11-year-olds and on a descending scale until three. This was stirred in the meeting that this Monday held the Federal Health Council (Cofesa), that groups together the ministers of Health of all the provinces and CABA, with the leadership of the national minister, Carla Vizzotti. At the meeting, it was also agreed to hold meetings with the Argentine Society of Pediatrics (SAP) and with the branch dedicated to vaccination of Unicef. The virtual meeting with SAP was already taking place on the same Monday afternoon. The province of Buenos Aires kicked off starting with the registration and on Saturday 340 thousand boys signed up. But in Cofesa all the provinces agreed, so that the process of vaccinating minors is already a fact.

It is possible that the Buenos Aires government, which has always differed, will object and argue that there are not enough studies, but the Sinopharm vaccine is already applied to children in China, while Chile is vaccinating children with a vaccine, also Chinese, from lower efficiency: Sinovac.

Meanwhile, this week there will be a lot of calls for second doses because 1,600,000 Oxford / AstraZeneca arrived and a similar amount of Sputnik 2 finished by the Richmond Laboratory is available. Also this week will come a shipment of more than 1,600,000 doses of Pfizer to be used in adolescents.

The Cofesa explained the Anmat decision that on Friday authorized the Sinopharm vaccine for boys. It was an expected resolution given that the Ministry of Health accumulated almost 10 million doses with the precise objective of applying it to boys from three to 11 years old.

It is clear at this point that minors do not pass the covid in a serious way, but they are contagious, even more than the elderly. Therefore, vaccination is a way to close the roads to the virus, especially because of the danger of contagion to parents and grandparents.

The objection of the Argentine Society of Pediatrics and the explanation of a specialist

Who made an objection public was the Argentine Society of Pediatrics, which requested more scientific reports on Sinopharm. Molecular biologist Ernesto Resnik explained that phase 3 studies of 30,000 or 40,000 people are not carried out in minors, precisely because they are children who cannot be inoculated with the experimental vaccine. However, Resnik said that there is already a huge application experience in China and now also in Chile. Furthermore, the inactivated virus technique has been proven for decades. On the contrary, in a new technique, such as messenger RNA – Pfizer and Moderna – there is less experience.

For now, the Buenos Aires Minister of Health, Nicolás Kreplak, has already launched the enrollment of boys with a strong start: 340 thousand registered in a single day and 400 thousand throughout the weekend. According to the authorities of that portfolio, comparatively, it is a very high registration for just two days. Kreplak is waiting for what is decided in the Cofesa to know the day the vaccination begins: Argentina has the necessary vaccines, so the decision is one of health policy. To this is added that it must be explained how it is to be dosed, since what is applied to boys is a lower dose: sometimes half, sometimes a third.

Second doses

What is not a matter of debate is the final section of the application of second doses: the calculation is that by the middle of the month all those who received the initial dose could be fully vaccinated. For this, 1,600,000 Oxford / AstraZeneca arrived this weekend and the version is that, from Mexico, before October 15, another 3,500,000 vaccines will arrive whose active substance was produced in the Garín mAbxience laboratory. With these amounts, the vaccination of all the people who are waiting for the second dose of that vaccine would be completed.

As for Sputnik V, 1,600,000 doses 2 were released last week, completed at the Richmond Laboratory and there are five million doses 1 and 2 pending quality control approval. It is very possible that this week a new game will be given the go-ahead.

The figure of only six deaths on Sunday and 386 infections exhibits a decline that occurs at a much faster rate than expected by specialists. One key was the delay of the Delta variant, due to the restrictions on flights. But at this point, with the normalization of activities, it is possible that infections will increase, but vaccination will make – it is the expectation – that serious cases or deaths do not increase.

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