Chile approves use of Chinese CanSino vaccine against coronavirus

Chile approved this Wednesday the emergency use of the Chinese vaccine CanSino Biologics against the coronavirus, the fourth authorized by the government of this South American country hit by a second wave of the pandemic, reported the Institute of Public Health.

CanSino It will be added to the already approved vaccines Pfizer / BioNTech and Sinovac, which are currently being supplied in the southern country. The vaccine was also approved AstraZeneca, but no dose is yet available in Chile.

“The approval is between 18 and 60 years old and the reason has to do with the fact that most of the studies were at that age and there is no specific detail regarding older ages (…) Considering that we also have vaccinated the population older than 55 years in Chile ”, said the director of the ISP, Heriberto García.

The official added that the effectiveness of the CanSino vaccine is 74% according to a study conducted in Pakistan. Unlike the rest approved in Chile, this is a single dose.

“The data we have says that over time this vaccine loses its safe immune response. We do not yet know how long it actually lasts and therefore it could happen that subsequent studies say that a second booster dose is needed, that is why we considered it approved ”, highlighted García.

Chile At the end of March, it had purchased 1.8 million doses of this vaccine, in addition to the 35 million that the government has already agreed with other firms to advance its broad immunization process.

Approval is recorded at times when Chile reached 7.1 million people vaccinated with at least one dose and 4.1 million who have already received both. With these figures, 27.6% of the target population of the campaign is immunized (15.2 million out of a total of 19 million inhabitants of the country).

The data position Chile as the country with the best vaccination rate for its population in Latin America. This process occurs in parallel to a sustained rise in new infections of coronavirus, with daily record numbers of infections that have exceeded those of the first wave, with more than 8,000 new infected per day.

From the detection of the first case of coronavirus In Chile on March 3, 2020, the country accumulated 1,043,022 infections and 23,796 deaths.