Argentina uses Chinese CanSino COVID-19 vaccine to immunize working-class neighborhoods

JOSE LEON SUAREZ, Argentina - Vaccination with CanSino COVID-19 vaccine doses took place Friday in the La Carcova neighborhood of Jose Leon Suarez, a town in the northwest of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital.

The South American country recently began to immunize residents of working-class neighborhoods with a vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics Inc.

The government of Buenos Aires province set up a mobile vaccination site manned by medical personnel and volunteers.

Laura Fortuna, a nursing student helping to immunize residents, told Xinhua that in working-class neighborhoods the task is "to reach people who could not get vaccinated or who could not get to vaccination sites."

The CanSino vaccine is a single dose and that's very good, because people can complete their vaccination schedule at one time and there is no need for them to come back, Fortuna said. "So we use it a lot for low-income neighborhoods. They accept it better because it is a single dose."

To date, Argentina has received 600,000 doses of the single-dose CanSino viral vector vaccine, which is also easier to store than other vaccines.

CanSino has shown 65 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic cases and over 90 percent efficacy in preventing severe cases.