Chile resumes its efforts to manufacture its own vaccines

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Chilean Minister of Science, Flavio Salazar, emphasized that “Chile needs to take a leap forward and recover the capacity it had until the beginning of the year 2000 to produce vaccines in our territory”. Approaches like this one are necessary to face this and future pandemics.

The main objective of the meeting held on March 24 at the Palacio de La Moneda by the Ministers of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation, Flavio Salazar; of Health, María Begoña Yarza; of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Urrejola; of Economy, Nicolás Grau; and of Public Works, Juan Carlos García, accompanied by José Miguel Benavente, Vice President of Corfo, was to learn about the project for constructing a new vaccine production plant.

In the activity, the rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, and the director of Innovation of this university, Carlos Saffie, presented the new Vaccine Production Center that this university is building and which is designed as a multipurpose plant, which will allow the production of vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and other biopharmaceuticals.

The initiative contemplates the production, purification, and manufacture of vaccines, resuming the complete manufacturing process in the country.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us that it is necessary to have our own responses to this type of situation. Experience has shown us that vaccine production capacity is insufficient for rapid response for all countries,” said the Minister of Science, Flavio Salazar.

Regarding the activity, the Secretary of State explained that in the meeting between ministers and academia, they talked about how to recover certain degrees of sovereignty when producing vaccines and biopharmaceuticals in our country. “There are several projects in that sense, with an integral vision that requires the associativity of the academy and a strong impulse from the State. That is what we are modeling today, to know what our participation as a State will be, because from the point of view of necessity and justification, clearly today Chile needs to make a leap and recover the capacities it had until the beginning of the year 2000, to produce vaccines in our territory and somehow project a development based on greater knowledge and complexity, positioning ourselves as a more modern country that is at the service of its people and its community,” she affirmed.

The Minister of Health, María Begoña Yarza, indicated that the response to this pandemic has been to resort to the international market to have access to vaccines, being left to the discretion of the market elements. “Projects such as this one allow us to adapt to the new challenge and provide a local response for Chile and at a regional level.”

“In Latin America, only 13% of the population is vaccinated with the first dose. In this context, it is important to understand that the pandemic is a global problem, which will not stop if we do not have vaccination levels of the regional and world population that reach 70%, as indicated by the WHO. It means that we have to make collective solidarity efforts, which we have been presented with today. We must generate a health response at national and Latin American levels”, added Minister Yarza.