Government could have ‘Argentine vaccine’ by 2022, says official

Argentina will be self-sufficient next year in vaccine production, according to Fernando Peirano, president of the National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation (Agencia I+D+i).

In an interview with the Noticias Argentinas news agency, Peirano refused to pin down his prediction to a specific month, as he said this would  permit “a longer-term outlook.”

Once coronavirus was under control, efforts could turn to securing immunity against diseases like dengue or yellow fever, Peirano continued. 

The elaboration of vaccines in Argentina had progressed to the pre-clinical stage, said the official, and if that was satisfactorily concluded, they could proceed to the last stage with human volunteers under the supervision of ANMAT (Argentina’s equivalent of the Food & Drug Administration).

Completion of the initial lab stage would entail subsidies of 6-10 million pesos, he calculated, rising to 60 million pesos for the pre-clinical stage.

The San Martín and Litoral Universities in conjunction with researchers of the CONICET National Scientific Research Council were central to these projects while the Unidad Coronavirus unit teams up the Science and Technology Ministry, CONICET and the agency I+D+i. Over 904 proposals had been received from the scientific, academic and business worlds, he said. 

Peirano concluded with some harsh criticisms of the Mauricio Macri administration and its 40 percent spending cuts, concluding that under the current government a billion pesos would be spent on science instead of SIDE intelligence snooping. 

– TIMES/NA