RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With one of the best-organized vaccination campaigns in the world, Chile aims to implement Covid-19 vaccination for children under 12 years of age starting in September.
The government’s purchasing plans include immunizers for youngsters in that age group, Rodrigo Yañez, Chile’s undersecretary for international economic relations, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Sinovac Biotech’s vaccines are candidates for when the immunization campaign expands, given their efficacy against coronavirus and safety record, he said.
“We expect to start vaccinating this population probably around August or September,” said Yañez, who leads the government’s negotiations with Covid-19 vaccine suppliers worldwide. “Right now, we are vaccinating adolescents.”
Chile has vaccinated 61 percent of its population with two doses, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, a much higher proportion than countries in the region and also more than wealthier countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
After facing waves of covid-19 earlier this year, the country began to relax restrictions as cases dropped.
Overall, many parents do not want to vaccinate their children because the risk of hospitalization and death from covid-19 is low.
A Sinovac team is currently in Chile looking for different locations for a possible vaccine factory that would serve the entire region, Yañez said in the interview. “We are also interested in RNA technology plants,” he said.
Chile is still in negotiations for vaccine purchases with suppliers including Sinovac, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sputnik V, Yañez said. On Wednesday, the country’s Public Health Institute approved the use of Sputnik V for adults.
So far, Chile has received about 18.6 million vaccines from Sinovac, 6.1 million from Pfizer-BioNTech, 1.7 million from AstraZeneca and 575,000 from CanSino Biologics, according to data from the presidential office. Chile’s total population is about 18 million.