Chile and Ecuador Authorize Pfizer Vaccine in South America

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In Santiago, the government approved, on Wednesday, December 16th, the decision made by a team of 22 experts and pharmaceutical chemists from the Institute of Public Health (ISP), the Chilean regulatory agency.

President Sebastian Piñera announced a national network appearance for Wednesday evening to provide details of his country’s immunization plan, where 15,959 people have died since March and there are indications of a resurgence of the pandemic, which points to the danger of a second wave of the disease, with 1,402 new cases in the past 24 hours.

“Approval is on the way,” said Heriberto García, ISP director. “It’s a historic moment for Chile,” he added. For the ISP, its development times “are necessary to ensure quality, safety and efficacy” and Chile is prepared to store and distribute them from a logistical standpoint.

The request for the emergency approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, which requires cooling at -70°C, was submitted to the ISP on November 27th. According to yesterday’s resolution, persons over 16 can be immunized.

The Chilean government has an agreement with Pfizer to supply enough doses to immunize five million people, but the first batch would be delivered from Sunday.

In turn, the Chinese Sinovac laboratory will ship vaccines for another five million citizens, due to arrive before January 15th. According to the Executive’s plan, some 16 million people will be immunized in Chile, a country with 17.5 million inhabitants.

The Executive reported that, additionally, agreements have been signed with Oxford University/AstraZeneca and Janssen/Johnson & Johnson. The South American country is part of the Covax alliance – led by the World Health Organization – which would provide it with access to an additional amount of doses.

“As a government, we value ISP’s approval of the vaccine, it is a tool that will allow us to tackle not only the health crisis, but also the social and economic crisis that the pandemic has triggered,” said Chilean Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado. The Chilean Executive decided that vaccination will begin with healthcare professionals and will continue with risk groups, such as the elderly.

For its part, the Ecuadorian government approved the Pfizer-BioNTEch vaccine against Covid-19 on Tuesday, December 15th. The first 50,000 doses will be delivered in January, according to Minister of Health Juan Carlos Zevallos, and will be distributed to two of the population groups most exposed to the disease: frontline healthcare professionals and people living or working in nursing homes.

This first vaccination stage, called phase zero, will be completed in March, with the second dose of the vaccine. Until then, additional doses are also expected for the vulnerable population, the remaining healthcare workers and other state security agents, such as police and firemen.

The Minister of Health of Ecuador ratified the intention to immunize nine million citizens in 2021, about 60% of the population, but leaving out those who have already been infected. The latest Ministry of Health survey points to almost 203,500 positive cases in the country in ten months, since the first case was detected in late February. Furthermore, 13,915 deaths were counted among confirmed cases and with Covid-19 as the probable cause of death.

The vaccine will be distributed free of charge in Ecuador from sentinel hospitals and vaccination posts. To this end, the Government is working to organize the logistics to ensure the cold chain requirements for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

According to authorities, between 10,000 and 15,000 people are also being trained for the mass vaccination process that will begin in March and will extend throughout the remainder of the year for people over 18. This includes Pfizer’s phases 2 and 3, as well as the coming of other options that are already under negotiation with Ecuador: the Covaxx, Oxford and AstraZeneca and the Covax Facility.