COVID-19: A Race Against Time to Vaccinate
COVID-19: A Race Against Time to Vaccinate
By Eric Hershberg, Christopher Kambhu, and Carla Froy*
Latin American governments’ rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine has been plagued by an unequal distribution of doses, a lack of ancillary supplies, and political disharmony – and most have little prospect of making up for lost time. The region has struggled to obtain enough doses despite Chinese, Russian, and U.S. vaccine diplomacy, and only 3 percent of the population is inoculated. There is also intra-regional inequality: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have 90 percent of available doses. Only Chile has implemented a successful immunization program.
- Argentina’s efforts are hampered by a lack of doses, despite deals with AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, and Sputnik. The administration of President Alberto Fernández has been forced to prioritize delivery of first-round shots and delay second shots. Scientists warn that this decision, similar to that of the United Kingdom, could jeopardize vaccine effectiveness. They have also criticized the pace of immunizations. While Argentina made a deal with Mexico last year to produce 150 million AstraZeneca doses for distribution across the region, it has yet to bear fruit.
- Mexico is also struggling with a lack of doses, which caused the government to delay its vaccination campaign launch from December to February. While the Argentine-Mexican deal for AstraZeneca doses intends to address this deficit, a lack of ancillary inputs has significantly delayed manufacturing. Fewer than 3 percent of Mexicans have been fully vaccinated, and the government’s plan aims for herd immunity only by March 2022. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) has criticized vaccine inequities as part of his discourse supporting marginalized populations, even speaking at the UN about this issue, but his administration’s list of vaccine priority groups has drawn fierce criticism. In some rural areas, citizens received vaccines before the medical staff administering them, raising concerns that AMLO is prioritizing political considerations over public health.
- Brazil faces a host of problems. Its vaccination scheme relies primarily on China’s Sinovac, which health experts say has the lowest efficacy of any vaccine, though the government signed a deal with AstraZeneca last month to produce 12.2 million doses domestically. President Jair Bolsonaro has regularly denigrated COVID vaccines, part of his laissez-faire attitude towards the pandemic. Although an estimated 4 percent of Brazilians are fully immunized, an inadequate record-keeping system makes monitoring progress difficult. Furthermore, the spread of a new COVID-19 variant from Manausthreatens to significantly undermine current vaccination efforts.
By contrast, Chile’s vaccination program is a regional success, with nearly 30 percent of its population fully inoculated. Following the program’s December launch, more than 3 million doses were administered in the first three weeks, and the government aims to fully vaccinate 80 percent of the population by June.
- Chile’s success is due in part to government efforts to procure vaccines from multiple sources (including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Sinovac) and hosting clinical trials in exchange for early access and better prices. The health ministry mobilized the national vaccination system to implement its program and established clear guidelines and a national schedule, avoiding the confusion and contradictory messaging that plague other nations.
The disparity between Chile’s and its neighbors’ results was not a forgone conclusion. Brazil also has a robust national vaccination system, and along with Argentina and Mexico secured vaccine deals around the same time as Chile. The key lies in the more aggressive approach of President Sebastian Piñera’s administration in acquiring as many doses as possible – from wherever they could be sourced – and in its ownership of Chile’s vaccination program. Unlike most governments in the region, in the second half of 2020, when many vaccines were still in development, Chile oriented its health infrastructure and bureaucracy toward a successful inoculation program. Most other countries in the region did not, and they have no available roadmap to make up for lost time.
April 22, 2021
* Eric Hershberg is the CLALS Director, Christopher Kambhu is a Program Coordinator at CLALS, and Carla Froy is a graduate student at American University’s School of Public Affairs.
