Luis Escobar / La Paz
In the “next few days” the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines will begin to expire. Given this situation, the Ministry of Health indicated that the governorates are in charge of avoiding the loss of doses. La Paz, for example, will start a campaign to immunize children.
“We did not deliver the vaccines yesterday and they will expire in the following days. We said it from the beginning: the only obligation of the departmental governments is to operationally administer the drugs that we assign them well in advance. It is not the first time that Bolivia is facing a vaccination campaign,” said the Minister of Health, Jeyson Auza.
The head of the Expanded Immunization Program (EPI), Max Enríquez, reported -at the beginning of February- that they only had two more months to continue applying the Moderna vaccine as a third dose and as a complete schedule. Last year, the Vice Minister of Foreign Trade, Benjamín Blanco, said that the expiration date, in the case of Pfizer vaccines, will be from March.
“There are strategies that each of the Departmental Health Services must apply to avoid the loss of these vaccines. We will follow up so that each of these strategies are applied. We must tell the population that, as the national government, we guarantee the provision of sufficient doses for 100% of the vaccinated population”, assured the minister.
The authority explained that the governorates “have the obligation” to administer the vaccines, since they manage the operational component of the national health system.
But, Auza did not answer what is the number of vaccines that could be lost. “We must receive reports from each of the departments. There is enough time that will allow us to have an evaluation and actions necessary to avoid this loss factor, ”he explained.
Peace
The Departmental Health Service (Headquarters) of La Paz will launch a vaccination campaign for students to raise immunization levels.
“Starting next week, we will probably begin to close diagnostic test points to increase human resources in vaccination. We will speak with the Departmental Service of Education to send our teams that will be in charge of vaccinating in the classrooms”, explained the director of the entity, Mayber Aparicio.
The professional acknowledged that not all children returned to face-to-face classes, but the goal is to expand the immunization sites. “We want to triple the vaccination points in children under 11 years of age to raise the percentages,” he said.
The withdrawal of the staff of the diagnostic test points is due to the reduction in demand by 70% according to data from the Sedes La Paz.
“This team will go to schools and other places to vaccinate citizens. With this, we hope to use the largest number of vaccines,” he said.
La Paz Strategy
- Process The vaccines that arrived in the department of La Paz expire in June. The director of the Headquarters, Mayber Aparicio, said they have “a lot of time”, but warned that at the current rate, some could be lost. Therefore, the strategy implies not leaving any citizen without a vaccine.
- Plan “Every person who comes to be vaccinated will be treated. If a jar out of five must be opened, it will be done. Before, five people had to be present, otherwise the jar could not be opened due to the loss factor. Now we don’t do that anymore,” he said. “If I have to open a bottle to vaccinate a child or a person, we’ll still open it,” explained the director of Sedes La Paz.
