MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine doctors highlight steep drop in COVID-19 vaccination

“Today, 15,000 people are vaccinated every day, when during the pandemic there were 290,000 daily immunizations” in Argentina, Debbag underlined

Argentine physicians have voiced their concern after detecting a low number of children vaccinated against COVID-19 nationwide at a time when the pandemic is not over, it was reported.

According to Telam, specialists warned that not immunizing children from 6 months to 12 years old leads to risk in that age group due to the spread of the Omicron variant and its mutations BA.4 and BA.5. They also underlined the falseness behind the thought that the sanitary crisis was already behind.

The healthcare professionals also pointed out that the inactivated virus vaccines used as booster doses do not protect against the new variants. Hence the need to take additional shots of MRNA platform drugs or “ambivalent vaccines.”

Telam quoted leading Paediatricians Gonzalo Pérez Marc of the Army's Military Hospital, Eduardo López of the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's Hospital in Buenos Aires, and Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases Chairman Roberto Debbag.

Early into the pandemic, “people started to get vaccinated” but when the flow of information to people was halted the immunization rate fell into “a standstill,” Pérez Marc explained. “Communication is fundamental,” he added.

“Kids have to be vaccinated because they will die or because they will have sequelae, there is solid and consistent data worldwide that this is the case and they should be immunized with the mRNA platform,” he also pointed out.

The Omicron variant, particularly the BA.4 and BA.5 lineages accounted for very little of all COVID-19 cases at first, but over time they represented 40% of the Sars CoV-2 infections. “These variants escaped the immune system proposed by vaccines and no longer affect the lungs but the upper tract such as the nose and throat. As a consequence, the disease is still present and generates high work and school absenteeism,” said López.

Debbag insisted that “we are not at the end of the pandemic” and that people believe this because “they link it to a social issue. If there is no more talk about Covid and we do not have friends or acquaintances hospitalized, we effectively believe that it is over.”

During an event hosted by the Raffo laboratory, which markets Moderna's vaccine nationwide, the expert spoke of the need for an “ecosystem of trust regarding vaccination.”

“Today, 15,000 people are vaccinated every day, when during the pandemic there were 290,000 daily immunizations” in Argentina, Debbag underlined. Antivaccine groups and social media postings have resulted in people losing their trust in vaccines. In order for trust to reappear, “the State, the scientific societies, the pharmaceutical product, the health professionals, the parents, and the media have to come together,” he added.