Buenos Aires to begin Covid-19 vaccine combination trial

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government of Argentina’s capital city on Friday announced it will start recruiting volunteers to conduct a vaccine combination trial against Covid-19.

“We have decided to initiate a vaccine combination trial in the city,” Buenos Aires’ Health Minister Fernán Quirós announced at a press conference.

The Minister said that a registry will be opened for people over 21 years of age residing in the capital who have been administered a dose of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for 30 days or more.

Among the registered volunteers, a group of people will be selected to be administered a dose of either the AstraZeneca or Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, or the second Sputnik V dose.

Quirós said that the selected volunteers will undergo blood tests before and after being vaccinated and will be monitored for 4 weeks to observe potential adverse effects and the immune response.

The Argentine Ministry of Health had announced on Thursday that it would summon researchers from the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and San Luis and from the capital to assess the efficacy of crossing vaccines from different manufacturers within the same scheme.

This comes amid a delay in Russia’s shipment of the second Sputnik V component, which will start to be produced in Argentina.

With a population of 45 million, Argentina began its vaccination campaign in late December last year and has so far received 27 million doses from several manufacturers (Sinopharm, AstraZeneca and Sputnik V).

According to official data released on Friday, 21.3 million doses have been administered so far. A total of 17.1 million people were administered the first vaccine dose, while 4.2 million people have already been inoculated with the second dose.

In the city of Buenos Aires, according to Quirós, 1.8 million doses have been administered, representing 47.91% of the capital’s inhabitants with at least one dose and 12.66% with full vaccination.

In addition, the Minister confirmed the decision of the Argentine health authorities to shorten vaccination intervals to 8 weeks for the AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines and to 4 weeks for Sinopharm.