Santiago.- Chile will start a booster vaccination plan for people who were inoculated with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac formula due to the evolution of its effectiveness and the threat of spreading the contagious Delta variant, President Sebastián Piñera announced this Thursday.
The South American country has used the Asian firm’s CoronaVac vaccine as the flag of its rapid and massive vaccination program that it has already completed in 12.2 of its 19 million inhabitants.
“We have decided to start a reinforcement of the vaccination of those people who have already received two doses of the Sinovac vaccine,” Piñera said in a report on the health situation.
The Undersecretary of Health, Paula Daza, explained that the process will begin with people over 55 who received the Sinovac vaccine before March 31 and the formula developed by AstraZeneca will be applied to them.
This week, a real-world study conducted by the Chilean Ministry of Health revealed that the Sinovac vaccine is 58.5 percent effective in preventing the development of symptoms, below a previous measurement and other vaccines applied in the nation. .
On the other hand, people under the age of 55 will receive the vaccine developed by Pfizer / BioNTech as a booster dose.
Regarding those initially vaccinated with the two-dose schedule from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, Daza said they will continue to analyze to determine when they may require the booster.
