RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The monitoring of vaccination rates against Covid-19 allows us to understand the scale of protection being developed against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the world while facilitating the monitoring of how vaccines are distributed among populations, regions and each particular nation.
The data show that Israel is – so far – the country that administered the most vaccines for every 100 people in its population and daily doses administered over the past seven days for every million inhabitants, as of January 6th, with a vaccination rate of 17.14% and 13,864 daily doses, respectively. The data is provided by the British tracking website specialized in real-time official statistics, Our World In Data, which collects figures from Oxford University.
With the emergency use approval of different vaccines in several countries worldwide and the start of the vaccination process, this key statistic has been added to direct health policies and successfully manage the challenges posed by this global pandemic: the total number of people immunized per 100 inhabitants and the number of daily doses administered per million inhabitants within a 7-day range. These data are now part of prestigious international statistical websites that monitor the progress of Covid-19, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Johns Hopkins University in the United States, the European CDC, Worldmeters and Our World in Data, among others.
Israel has immunized over 1.48 million people against Covid-19, as announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “We are breaking all records. We brought millions of vaccines to the State of Israel. We are ahead of the rest of the world thanks to our excellent Health Maintenance Organizations,” the president said in an official statement.
“The Israeli medical system, composed of immigrants, is based on a medical network of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) or Mutual Aid Associations,” explained Dr. Shimshon Erdman, director of the department of International Relations of the Israeli Medical Association with Latin America.
In addition to the national, integrated and comprehensive medical system, another factor of success, according to Erdman, was the speed with which vaccines were purchased: “Israel tried to acquire the doses as quickly as possible, purchasing and paying them even before they were approved by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration).
After Israel in the table comparing the total number of vaccine doses administered per 100 people in the total population, come the United Arab Emirates with 8.35, then Bahrain with 4.02, the United States with 1.6, the United Kingdom with 1.39, Denmark with 1.09, Russia with 0.55, Italy with 0.51, Germany with 0.44 and Canada with 0.43 immunized per 100 people. The global total corresponds to 0.2.
In the case of daily vaccinations per million inhabitants, Israel ranks first with 13,864, followed by Spain with 1,209, Denmark with 1,146, Northern Ireland with 1,127, the United States with 1,084, Bahrain with 937, Scotland with 873, Italy with 691, the United Kingdom with 639 and England with 617 daily doses. This is a 7-day rolling average per million people in the total population. It is counted as a single dose and may not be equal to the total number of people vaccinated, depending on the specific dose regimen of, for instance, those receiving multiple doses.
In this context, where is Argentina? As pointed out by the statistical tracker, and after having assessed the local case since the start of vaccination with the first 300,000 doses of the Russian vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Center, the Sputnik V, with 52,195 jabs and 0.12% of its population immunized, the South American country is ranked 15th in the list of nations with the highest number of vaccinations per 100 people and with 113 daily doses, it is 13th in relation to the number of daily administrations per million inhabitants.
Asked about the strategy adopted by Argentina for its Covid-19 vaccination campaign, bioinformatician and CONICET researcher Rodrigo Quiroga warned: “The Government is not vaccinating thinking about herd immunity in the short term, they are not thinking about interrupting virus transmission, since they know that in order to achieve that goal, a number of vaccines are required that will be difficult to buy at the moment. The case of Israel is very different, as it is seeking to interrupt virus transmission, because it has the vaccines in its possession, and thus it can now vaccinate a significant percentage of its population, and it also has a great logistical capacity to conduct this campaign quickly and with a large number of available resources.”
“The Argentine government intends to reach the figure of five million vaccines administered per month, according to the most optimistic estimates. But first we have to get those vaccines and the demand for doses in the world is increasing. The goal is to secure vaccines as soon as possible and counting on those doses is key. The United States planned to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of 2020 and only managed to reach two million. The main problem or dilemma today is to secure the doses,” he added.
“Israel is a highly militarized country, which allows it to have significant logistics, for transfers, distribution and application. This type of process can be very well organized. The United States, for instance, which is a large country, shows a very slow pace or rate of vaccination due to the difficulty involved in this type of massive health campaign. All countries seek to achieve herd immunity. By March, April, – according to what was announced by the national government – the goal is to vaccinate 12 million Argentineans, of which, according to the details of the decree published in the Official Gazette, there will be around 3.5 million people aged over 70 and 3.5 million aged between 60 and 70”, stated Aliaga.
According to data from the REFEPS (Federal Registry of Health Workers), an initial estimate of 763,000 healthcare workers in Argentina was reached on November 9th, 2020. According to reports from the different Security Forces and the Armed Forces, an estimated 500,000 people are working in this area, also among priority workers when it comes to being vaccinated.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health details that there are 7,279,394 people over 60 years of age in Argentina, based on the crossing of information by SUMAR ID, REDES, PROTEGER and INCLUIR SALUD and 2021 population projections based on the 2010 National Population, Homes and Household Census. At this point it is important to note that ANMAT and the health portfolio are waiting for documentation from the Gamaleya Center confirming the efficacy, effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V in people over 60 years of age in order to begin vaccinating this age group.
Therefore, Quiroga added that “in order to fully vaccinate the group of healthcare professionals, 450,000 vaccines are required in addition to the initial 300,000 that are already being administered, and then an additional two million would be needed for those over 70.”
According to the professor at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences of the National University of Cordoba, “based on the data provided by the Ministry of Health on how they plan to vaccinate, the priority groups are and will be those at risk. The aim is to reduce mortality rates of the disease, vaccinating first those who suffer it more severely. Once that happens, mortality will drop dramatically, even though the disease will continue to be in circulation. The Argentine government is betting on vaccinating the risk groups in order to decrease mortality or lethality. I think it is a pragmatic strategy given that it is good to try to reduce deaths and hospitalizations as much as possible, in a context where new daily Covid-19 cases do not stop growing.”