Argentina to offer Covid-19 vaccinations to tourists
Buenos Aires, Oct 26 (EFE).- Argentine Health Minister Carla Vizzotti announced on Tuesday that her country is planning to “move forward with the offer” to vaccinate arriving tourists against Covid-19, basically people under 18, who are those who can enter without having been vaccinated, and certain other unvaccinated people who enter under some sort of exemption.
Buenos Aires will also offer the vaccine at several “places along the border,” said Vizzotti, specifically mentioning the provinces of Formosa – bordering on Paraguay – Salta and Jujuy, on the border with Bolivia.
Argentina will open its borders to foreign tourism starting in November, when it will begin requiring that all people entering be fully vaccinated and receive a negative PCR test 72 hours prior to traveling to the country, thus exempting people from testing negative 5-7 days after arriving, according to what Tourism Minister Matias Lammens said at a press conference.
The South American country, which has suffered 5,281,585 registered coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and 115,851 deaths, has been seeing a sustained decline in its case load which “in recent weeks has stabilized at a very low number of cases” but with the Delta variant accounting for 60 percent of those infections.
Vizzotti added that 72.6 percent of the Argentine population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 55.4 percent have been fully vaccinated with two doses.
She also announced that Argentina will provide a third dose of the vaccine to people older than 3 who are immunocompromised and have received any of the available vaccines and to people over age 50 who have received China’s Sinopharm vaccine.
Between the last week of October and the first week of November, authorities are planning to “move forward” with “this very specific population who needs a third dose to offer the greatest possible protection,” a group that includes about 1.6 million people, Vizzotti said.
For people over age 50 who have received Sinopharm, the AstraZeneca vaccine will be provided for the third dose “to be able to stimulate the immune response” and which health experts have deemed to provide “even better” protection.
People under age 50 who have gotten Sinopharm will be receiving third doses in a graduated manner, depending on assorted other factors.
Vaccine booster shots will be administered starting in December, Vizzotti said, to “health care personnel and, in a staggered manner, (to others) as we move forward with the vaccination campaign.”
EFE
