Argentina’s drug control body approved the use of the Covishield coronavirus vaccine, from the Indian laboratory Serum Institute, as published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette.
It is a vaccine made under technology transfer from the AstraZeneca laboratory and the University of Oxford, whose immunizer Argentina had already approved on December 30.
The authorization, with an “emergency” nature, bears the signature of the Minister of Health, Gines Gonzalez Garcia.
Argentina had already granted its approval to the Sputnik V vaccine, from the Russian laboratory Gamaleya on December 23, and then expanded its application in January to those over 60 years of age.
Sputnik V is so far the only vaccine that the South American country has for its voluntary immunization campaign that began on December 29.
Unlike the Russian vaccine, Covishield can be stored at standard temperatures.
The decree highlights that Covishield “results from the development of the production process carried out by the Serum Institute of India in collaboration with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca in the context of a technology transfer”.
In this case, its approval focused on “determining that said transfer (of technology) does not impact the quality, safety and efficacy” of the product that has already been approved by 12 countries, in addition to the Indian health authority.
The decree indicates that “there have been no serious adverse events nor have significant differences been identified in the efficacy observed in the different age groups that participated in the clinical trials.”
Since last March, Argentina has recorded 1,985,484 cases and 49,398 deaths from covid-19 out of a population of 44 million.
The South American country has so far received 820,000 doses of Sputnik V.
The government has contracts for the provision of vaccines against covid-19 for some 62 million doses from different laboratories, as Minister Gines Gonzalez explained recently before a legislative commission.
The minister specified that Argentina has agreements to receive 30 million doses of Sputnik V, 23.6 million of AstraZeneca and nine million through the Covax mechanism, “an international initiative to guarantee a fair distribution of the media against covid-19.
According to these data, the official affirmed that the government hopes to immunize the entire Argentine population over 18 years of age.