A few days after receiving his first dose of a coronavirus vaccine manufactured by China, Rodrigo Jordán became ill and tested positive for Covid-19. The 61-year-old was hospitalized for nine days near his home in the Chilean capital Santiago and needed supplemental oxygen to pass through.
Across Chile, which has made one of the world’s fastest vaccination campaigns using the vaccine by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd., health authorities have scrambled to deal with the increase in new infections and deaths.
More than 7.6 million people, half of Chile’s adult population, have already received at least one vaccine dose, most of which was made by the Chinese drugmaker, making the country a real test ground for a vaccine that Beijing gives to countries. in the developing world. .
The problem, say public health officials, was that people generally overestimated the effectiveness of the vaccine after only one of the two recommended doses, and tried too quickly to alleviate the restrictions on pandemic control.
“With one dose, we know the protection is very weak,” said Claudia Cortés, an expert in infectious diseases at the Santa Maria Clinic in Santiago, where about 10% of Covid-19 patients in her hospital had one shot. got. “It has not been clearly explained that you need two doses – that you have to wait.”