Last Tuesday, April 12, the Municipality of Las Condes announced, through its social networks, the lack of stock in the Pfizer vaccination for the fourth dose. On that occasion, the municipality indicated that the remaining 180 vaccines would be reserved for the inoculation of minors. The same week in which other municipalities reported the same thing, which caught people’s attention and made them wonder: What is happening with the Pfizers?
One day after what happened in Las Condes, the Municipality of Renca reported that “due to the lack of distribution of Pfizer vaccines for adults from the Ministry of Health, this vaccine is not available at the vaccination points in our community.” When consulted in this regard, they pointed out The Third PM that currently there is no break in that stock and that the situation has already been regularized.
In Chile 21,755,789 doses of vaccines against SARS-CoV2 have been administered with the Pfizer-BioNTech laboratory. According to figures from the Department of Statistics and Health Information of the Ministry of Health (Minsal), a total of 51,486,776 doses have been inoculated in the country, in a process that continues to be led by Sinovac vaccines, with more than 25 million dose.
Added to the above are the first 1.5 million doses that arrived from the Moderna laboratory on February 23. That responds to the contract signed by the previous government with that laboratory, which translates into the delivery of a total of three million vaccines.
Despite the doubts that exist about the distribution of vaccines, consulted in this regard from the Minsal they assure that Vaccination continues “normally and according to plan”to which they add that the process does not present any problem.
In this way, they rule out that there is “a stock break or problems in the supply of vaccines, since both vaccines are available in all regions and communes of the country.” At the national level, according to the health authority, there is a stock of approximately 480 thousand doses from Pfizer, in addition to 1.4 million from Moderna.
In addition, they argued that shipments of Pfizer vaccines arrive every week with approximately 300,000 doses. According to the contracts, that will be maintained with the same frequency until next September. In addition, confirmation of the arrival of “an important shipment of vaccines against Covid-19 from another pharmaceutical company is expected before the end of the month.”
The Municipality of Las Condes, one of those affected by the alleged lack of stock, claims to have normalized its vaccination process. The foregoing would respond to a different distribution on the part of the Minsal with respect to the laboratory that is used according to the dose that the person should receive and the age group to which they belong.
in that community now The new vaccines from the Moderna laboratory are being applied as a fourth dose, and for those over 18 years of age. Only during the day of April 18 in Las Condes, 2,800 doses of that laboratory were administered. The Pfizer are reserved for the second dose of minors between 12 and 17 years old.
From the Minsal they explain that “since the week vaccines are available from both Pfizer and Moderna for use primarily in booster vaccination”. Because both vaccines are developed with messenger RNA, “they have similar characteristics for their administration in the target population of 18 years and over.”
This definition of the Minsal is also confirmed in Ñuñoa. Although in that commune they recognize that there was a break in the Pfizer stock during the last days, they point out that it was due to an increase in the people who attended to be vaccinated. However, that would already be regularized. Anyway, the fourth dose vaccination of those over 18 years of age is with Moderna.
The Municipality of Puente Alto assures that it has not had a break in Pfizer stock, although it has in the amount delivered. From that commune they explain that what has increased is the arrival of Moderna vaccines, which motivates the difference in this stock and that it would respond to the distribution promoted by the Minsal.
At the end of March, the Municipality of Quilpué reported a shortage in the Pfizer laboratory’s vaccine stock. Currently they rule out that there is a lack of stock, although they maintain that Minsal destined those doses for minors between 6 and 11 years old, while third and fourth doses are assigned to Moderna. Situation that is repeated in Maipú, according to that communal government.
On February 2, the Public Health Institute (ISP) authorized the emergency use of the Moderna laboratory vaccine. According to some municipal authorities, one of the main concerns of people when it comes to getting vaccinated is the lack of knowledge about new vaccines in the country, as is the case with Moderna.
A study conducted by the University of Virginia in the United States, as reported What’s up, determined which of these two vaccines lose antibodies faster. As the investigation concluded, the antibodies generated by Pfizer “increase more slowly and decrease more rapidly than those generated by Moderna”.
Dr. Carlos Pérez, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad San Sebastián and infectologist at the Universidad de Los Andes, explains that the Moderna vaccine “It has a very good effectiveness in preventing Covid-19 disease, and getting seriously ill, especially with booster doses. it also has a good effectiveness per Omicron variant”. For the same reason, he assures that “people should be very calm because in practice it is a vaccine very similar to Pfizer’s.”
“The recommendation is that all people receive their booster doses, because the antibodies and the immune response are lost after a few months and with these vaccines it is stimulated again and well protected, especially against severe disease by Covid-19. ″, concluded Perez.