(10 Mar 2021) Argentine officials continued the country's vaccination programme using the Russian Sputnik vaccine and Chinese Sinopharm, prioritizing essential workers and the elderly.
At a teacher's union house Wednesday morning, teachers and people who work in schools, queued to get their vaccinations.
Kindergarten teacher Cecilia Paz, has been eagerly waiting since Dec. 28 to get vaccinated.
She can't go back to in-person classes until fully vaccinated, due to her health condition.
"I looked at the application (which notifies you when to get the vaccine) all the time and it finally arrived and I am very happy and grateful for everything," Paz said.
Despite skepticism about Russia's hasty introduction of the vaccine, which was rolled out before it had completed late-stage trials, the vaccine appears to be safe and effective.
According to a study published in the Lancet, Sputnik V is 91% effective and appears to prevent inoculated individuals from becoming severely ill with COVID-19, although it's still unclear if the vaccine can prevent the spread of the disease.
In Argentina some 10 percent of essential workers and the elderly have been vaccinated thus far.
So far about 1,424,984 people received the first dose and 349,454 both doses, representing about 10 percent of the initial target population.
Argentina's Juan Manuel Castelli, National Director of Disease Control in charge of the vaccination program, said the results of the Sputnik are very satisfactory.
"We can see from the preliminary results that (the Sputnik V) has very good results in terms of how our immune system responds to the first and second doses of the Sputnik," Castelli said.
With a global shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, some experts say boosting the use of vaccines made by China and Russia could offer a quicker way to increase the global supply.
Others note that Russia's push to export its vaccine around the world may be driven by political interests.
Despite skepticism about Russia's hasty introduction of the vaccine, which was rolled out before it had completed late-stage trials, the vaccine appears to be safe and effective.
And more countries are going with the Russian vaccine.
Yesterday Russia has signed a deal to produce its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine in Italy.
Meanwhile Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to acquire a new machine from San Diego gene sequencing giant Illumina capable of sequencing over 3,000 coronavirus genome per day which will help the country monitor the possible local appearance of virus mutations.
Dr. Claudia Perandones, Scientific Director of ANLIS-Malbrán, the National Administration of Laboratories and Institutes of Health, said the machine, which is the first one in Latin America, is critical "to make important decisions from the health point of view, on the issue of borders and to decide if the vaccination strategies that the country is incorporating are effective against these changes in the virus genome."

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