A logistical nightmare
Defence Minister Agustín Rossi said Tuesday that the portfolio would contribute all the means of air and land transport of the Armed Forces to the logistics of transferring the vaccine so that from the day the vaccine arrives in Argentina, its distribution can be in place as designed.
Apart from the distribution of the vaccine against Covid-19, there is also the question of application. The government understands that it will not be simple to muster the 60,000 health workers needed nationwide with their unions denouncing that they are underequipped with thousands infected in their ranks.
While professional sources point out that there are now less cases, thus providing a window of opportunity as long as there is no second wave of Covid-19, they also say: “It’s vital for doctors to be able to take a break.”
Not only must there be sufficient numbers of nurses and health staff but they must be ready to transfer to the most remote zones of the country – here the Armed Forces could play a central role. In these areas the cold storage of vaccines like Pfizer is an especially stiff challenge, as well as the transfer of vaccines to remote and mountainous zones.
Last Tuesday’s first meeting of the Vaccination Committee outlined an objective of training up 60,000 health workers for mass vaccination or one for every 733 Argentines. While the risk groups (also including health workers, teachers and the security forces as essential workers) number 12-13 million, reaching the entire population would require almost 100 million doses.
González García has thus already explained that all those aged below 18 without life-threatening problems would be excluded from the programme, at least in its first stage. Some of those in the risk groups would also be staffing the 60,000 vaccination agents, thus falling on both sides of the process.
Should there be a second wave, it would be much harder to take people away from the main battle front in the health centres, some of them badly stricken by the virus in recent months. In fact, unions grouping doctors and health workers have been complaining about the lack of regular consultation on the part of the authorities over decisions relating to facing up to the pandemic. A survey by the Observatorio del Derecho Social, linked to the CTA trade union umbrella, has estimated that 38,000 health workers have been infected in the first seven months of the pandemic, of whom 160 died.
Aside from under-equipment and the lack of leave, pay arrears (apart from a bonus of 5,000 pesos granted by the national government) have triggered protests by doctors and health workers in over half the country (including the provinces of Buenos Aires, Chubut, Córdoba, Jujuy, La Rioja, Salta, San Juan, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe and Tucumán).
Salta is one province where the local authorities have already been in contact with the military. The commander of the Army’s 5th Mountain Brigade, Colonel Mariano Castelli, has met up with provincial Public Health Minister Juan José Esteban to co-ordinate the tasks of transport and storage, even offering the nurses being trained for immunisation access to such tricky zones as the Chaco Salteño, the Puna plateau and the departments of Iruya and Santa Victoria.