MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

4th dose of covid-19 vax will be the last until next year, Buenos Aires Minister forecasts

COVID-19 still “causes waves of contagions with an enormous number of sick people per day,” Quirós said

Buenos Aires City Health Minister Fernán Quirós said he believed it was “very likely” that the fourth dose of covid-19 vaccine would be the last this year and that the next immunization campaign will be ahead of the 2023 fall.

Quirós also said in a radio interview that so far no country has applied more than four doses and explained that in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires the fourth dose “is being offered to those who have completed more than 120 days” after the application of the third dose, “starting with those over 50 years of age and then to the rest of the population.”

The Minister insisted that the first booster of the vaccine “significantly” increases protection, because, in light of the new variants, the primary scheme of two doses might not be enough to avoid serious disease and hospitalization.

He underlined that in the city there have already been 5 weeks without an increase in the number of cases and foresaw that “it is likely that in a few weeks we will start to see a decrease.”

“Throughout the month of May cases increased in the City and now we have several days in which they have stopped increasing, so we will be watching how the curve of cases behaves,” he added.

Quirós said “a definitive scenario,” was coming up, “which is the usual circulation of one more respiratory virus, as could be the flu.”

“We are not there yet,” the health official explained, but in “a transition zone,” where COVID-19 still “causes waves of contagions with an enormous number of sick people per day”.

Vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 began at the end of December 2020 in Argentina for strategic personnel, and in 2021 it began to be applied to the rest of the population. Third doses started being applied in October 2021 and the fourth injection is available since April 2022.