Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has announced the addition of three new vaccines to the country’s official immunisation schedule at a cost of $82 million.
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has announced the addition of three new vaccines to the country’s official immunisation schedule at a cost of $82 million.
Immunisation against chicken pox, rotavirus and meningococcal disease will bring the total number of vaccines in the national programme to 19.
Four international companies will compete to win tenders to supply the vaccines, which will be introduced next year.
Competing to supply the chicken pox vaccine will be British firm GSK with Varilrix and US company MSD with Varivax. The same two companies will be in competition for the rotavirus vaccine – MSD with Rotateq and GSK with Rotarix.
The options for the meningococcal vaccine are Menactra from French firm Sanofi Pasteur and Menveo from Swiss company Novartis.
The Argentine president said the new vaccines would reach 1.5 million children and prevent 25 thousand hospitalisations a year.
The total annual cost of the national vaccination programme will $10.4 billion.
Making the announcement, President Fernández de Kirchner heralded advances made in the last decade.
She said: “In 2013, 27 million doses were administered, now that figure is 57 million.” She highlighted that the budget had increased tenfold.
