MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

First batch of Pfizer vaccines reach Argentina

Vaccination in children under 17 years of age with no particular underlying conditions is set to begin in October.

Argentine health authorities Tuesday announced the arrival into the country of around 100,000 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, which will be used as the second shots of Sputnik V.

A shipment of the first 100,620 doses of vaccines against Covid-19 under the contract signed with the laboratory for a total of 20 million doses by 2021 will arrive at Ezeiza International Airport on Wednesday, at 4:00 p.m., on an American Airlines flight.

A second batch with another 160,290 vaccines is due in the coming days and a total of 580,000 injections are scheduled to reach the country during September, while the remaining 19.5 million doses are to be delivered during October, November and December.

The first batch of Pfizer vaccines will be allocated to completing the two-dose treatment of patients who have already received the Sputnik V's component one.

Vaccination in children under 17 years of age with no particular underlying conditions is set to begin in October.

Health authorities also explained some of the Pfizer vaccines will be applied to children with other health factors, in addition to supplementing Sputnik V treatments.

Besides Pfizer's drug, also Moderna's has been approved for pediatric use.

“In federal consensus, the 580,000 doses planned for September will be destined to advance in the vaccination of adolescents with risk conditions, to complete heterologous schedules and, depending on the availability of dose income, to the vaccination of other groups of adolescents,” the Health Ministry said through a statement.

Argentina has so far received 57,407,120 vaccines against COVID-19 since the start of the Strategic Vaccination Plan: 15,000,920 were Sputnik V: 10,955,260 of the first component (of which 1,179,625 were produced locally by Richmond) and 4,045,660 of the second component (702,500 from Richmond); 15,594,200 were AstraZeneca; 22,912,000 were Sinopharm; 3,500,000 were Moderna, (donated by the United States) and 200,000 were Cansino, in addition to Covishield doses made available through various mechanisms and donations.

According to the Public Vaccination Monitor, 51,970,024 doses have been distributed nationwide, with applications totalling 45,523,595, of which 28,485,407 people have received the first dose and 17,038,188 have completed their vaccination schedule.