Chile is one of the countries with the highest vaccination rate against covid-19 in the world, and the authorities approved this Thursday to expand the emergency use of the Chinese CoronaVac serum in children between 3 and 6 years of age.
The country, where more than 90% of the population has already completed their immunization schedule, was already administering this vaccine from the laboratory Sinovac, to minors from 6 years since last September.
The Institute of Public Health (ISP) approved this Thursday to extend its use to children from the age of 3, thus making Chile the first country in South America to give the green light to inoculation for this age group.
According to the institution, preliminary conclusions of the clinical study, carried out by the Institute Millennium of the Catholic University of chili, they demonstrated “That children have higher antibody production than adults and fewer adverse reactions.”
“For children under 3 years of age we have to have more evidence. We will see how vaccination advances in this group and we will see if we expand the range”, added the Undersecretary of Health, Paula Daza.More than 8 million people have already received an additional injection, out of a total population of 19 million, health authorities reported Thursday.
The most used vaccine in Chile is CoronaVac, although they are also administered to a lesser extent Pfizer / BioNtech, AstraZeneca and Cansino.
The pandemic, which had its most serious peak between last March and June and forced the confinement of the 90% of the populationIt has been under control for more than three months, although with slight ups and downs.
In the last 24 hours, 2,641 new cases and 43 deaths were added, and a positivity rate -number of positive examinations out of the total carried out- of 2.9% was registered on a national scale.
The country, which has already reached 1.75 million infections and 38,218 deaths, has few restrictions compared to the rest of the health crisis, without curfew or quarantines and with all shops, bars, restaurants open.
Vaccinated foreigners can enter the country since last October through four airports and from December they will also be able to do so through several land crossings.
