Santiago (Chile), January 29: Chilean health authorities on Wednesday approved the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
"This is very good news," Chile's Deputy Health Minister Paula Daza told local press.
It is the third vaccine approved in Chile, following the authorization of vaccines developed by U.S.-German partnership Pfizer-BioNTech and China's Sinovac.
"This third vaccine will obviously allow us to continue with the vaccination calendar that we have in our country," said Daza.
It is a vaccine that occupies two doses, with the second dose given 28 days after the first, she added.
Vaccines are pharmacological tools that help prevent the disease from spreading or worsening and could eventually prevent certain infections, the director of the Health Ministry's Institute of Public Health, Heriberto Garcia, told local press.
"Ultimately, if you don't take care of yourself, all of this effort could be in vain," he added.
Chile has registered 709,888 cases of COVID-19 infection and 18,040 deaths from the disease since March 2020.
Source: Xinhua