Surrounded by cameras and with enormous anticipation, Margaret Keenan arrived at Coventry University Hospital, in England, to be vaccinated against COVID-19. This British woman became the first person in the world to receive a vaccine against COVID-19, outside of a clinical trial.
This woman, who will turn 91 in a week, has been the first person in the world to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech combination, a week after its approval by the United Kingdom.The UK is the first nation in the world to begin mass inoculations with the Pfizer-BioNTech injection, one of three vaccines that have reported successful results from large trials after being developed in record time. Health Secretary MattHancock described the start of vaccines as “V-Day.” On the so-called “V Day”, health workers began to inoculate the population in what will be a test case for the world in its fight for the distribution of a compound that must be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius.
The launch of the vaccine raises the hope that the world is turning around in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than 1.5 million people, with Britain being the most affected European country with more than 61 thousand deaths. But despite the relief among people who received the first dose of a two-dose regimen, they will have to wait three weeks for the immunization booster.
There is no evidence that immunization reduces transmission of the virus. However, logistical challenges in distributing the vaccine, which only lasts for five days in a normal refrigerator, means that it will first go to dozens of hospitals and still cannot be taken to nursing homes. An effort that poses one of the greatest logistical challenges in peacetime history.
Transportation and distribution could prove more challenging in hot countries and larger nations like the United States and India, which have been hit hardest by COVID-19 and are expected to approve the injection for emergency use in the next few days or weeks.
The country has ordered enough supplies of the Pfizer-BioNTech injection to vaccinate 20 million people, which constitutes less than a third of the population. In the UK, around 800,000 doses are expected to be available in the first week, with priority for nursing home residents and caregivers, those over 80 and some health care workers. Russia and China have already begun providing domestically produced candidate vaccines to their populations, albeit before final safety and efficacy trials have been completed.
Latin America and the Caribbean With the first results of the vaccine projects of various pharmaceutical companies to combat Covid-19, the first vaccination plans and massive purchases by interested countries also arrived. In the midst of this race to deliver the dose to the population as soon as possible, debates arise around the distribution of the drug in the world, a particularly complex discussion in Latin America.
The region has around 630 million inhabitants to vaccinate. Several million of them live in hard-to-reach, hot areas and in States whose technical and technological development is uneven and often insufficient.
The main problem that countries face is the distribution in areas far from large cities, the preservation of vaccines and, above all, being able to buy enough antidotes in the international market with a visible economic disadvantage compared to the great powers. that have rushed to capture millions of doses for their population.
Buying from pharmaceutical companies is a much harder economic blow for Latin American economies than for those of other regions and that is why most of the countries in the region have joined the distribution proposed by the international agreement CovaxFacility, but this route only guarantees between 10 and 20% of the necessary doses and from March of next year, something that seems insufficient.
Furthermore, behind the multilateral agreements there is also a geopolitical struggle that influences the region.The case of Mexico Medical personnel who care for patients with COVID-19 and the elderly will be the first to receive the vaccine against the disease in Mexico, the Government said on Tuesday, launching a vaccination plan that would begin before the end of the year and that seeks immunize the majority of the population by 2021.
The Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell reported that the first 125,000 doses of the vaccine from the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer would begin to arrive in Mexico later in December, to begin with the vaccination once the local authority, Cofepris, approves its application.
“Initially, they are the clinical staff, the staff who are directly treating patients and, later, by extension, the set of health professionals,” said López-Gatell at the morning press conference of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador , when announcing the order in which the vaccines will be administered.
Later, the Government established a hierarchy by decades of age to vaccinate first the elderly and the elderly and lastly the youngest. In addition, a call is made for citizens with chronic diseases to come as soon as possible to apply the vaccine, when it is the turn of their age group.
The Ministry of Health agreed in early December with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer to acquire 34.4 million vaccines, has agreements with other firms, such as the British AstraZeneca, and is part of COVAX, a multilateral alliance promoted by the World Health Organization.
At the same press conference, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard stated that Mexico expects to sign an order this week for 35 million doses of the vaccine from the Chinese firm CanSinoBiologics and that the German CureVac will request in the coming days to carry out tests of his Phase III study of the vaccine, the most advanced. Along with both officials, López Obrador reiterated that the vaccine will be universally applicable and free, and clarified that he will wait for his turn to receive it.
