page_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina
section_title: Medical responses
hierarchical_section_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina / Medical responses
caption_attribution_description: This image is excerpted from a U.S. GAO report: &lt;a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-583SP" rel="noreferrer nofollow"&gt;www.gao.gov/products/GAO-20-583SP&lt;/a&gt; SCIENCE &amp; TECH SPOTLIGHT: COVID-19 Vaccine Development
context_page_description: The COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. On 3 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Argentina. As of 30 August 2020 a total of 408,413 people were confirmed to have been infected, and 8,457 people were known to have died because of the virus.
  On 7 March, the Ministry of Health confirmed the country's first documented death, a 64-year-old man who had travelled to Paris, France, who also had other health conditions; the case was only confirmed as positive after the patient's demise.
  On 19 March a nation-wide lockdown until 31 March was established in Argentina. The government later extended the lockdown to mid April, then 26 April; and on 25 April, President Alberto Fernández announced that the lockdown would be extended in major cities until 10 May. The lockdown was lifted throughout all the country, excepting the Greater Buenos Aires urban area, on 10 May, with Greater Buenos Aires locked down until 24 May, later extended to 7 June, and then 28 June, after a big jump in the number of new cases in this area.
context_section_description: The Ministry of Health summoned health professionals to provide health services in the context of the pandemic, in search of reinforcing the teams made up by the national and provincial governments. This call included nurses, biochemists, physiotherapists and physicians, in particular in the fields of medical clinic, cardiology, pneumonology, adult and pediatric intensive care, emergentology, pediatrics and general and/or family medicine. Proposals from professionals from other specialties were also received. Around 4,000 people joined a call from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) to summon volunteers to help on the influenza vaccination campaign, advanced medical students to be in triage in tents near hospitals where the patients will be first checked, volunteers to do a follow-up of isolated patients at home with a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19, and volunteers to work on logistics.
  The ANLIS-Malbrán (National Administration of Laboratories and Health Institutes "Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán") began carrying out 300 daily COVID-19 tests. Later, after 820 confirmed cases were reached, the Ministry of Health started the delivery of 35,000 reactives to expand the number of laboratories for diagnosis to all 24 jurisdictions in order to decentralize the testings, making the number of testings increase over time. Private medical clinics will be able to do up to 7,500 daily tests to decompress the public health system. Previously, the delivery of the diagnostic result was taking four to five days on average for patients in private clinics.
  As an effort to fight and contain the virus, the Ministry of Health implemented a plan of contact tracing in defined areas where an increase in the number of cases is detected or estimated. The plan launched first in Buenos Aires and was later extended throughout the country. The program, called Detectar (Detect in English; Strategic Testing Device for Coronavirus in Argentina Terrain), launched on May after a big jump in the number of cases in low socioeconomic class and densely populated neighborhoods in Greater Buenos Aires, known as villas.
  On 17 April, a clinical trial based on plasma donation of recovered patients from COVID-19 was created to find out if the antibodies of a recovered patient could benefit those who are being infected. It began on hospitals and hemotherapy centers in Greater Buenos Aires and was later extended to the rest of the country.
  Argentine scientists developed a quick diagnosis test to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), approved by the National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT in Spanish). The test, called NEOKIT-COVID-19, allows to obtain results in almost an hour and it offers a high degree of sensitivity (which reduces the possibility of false negatives) and specificity (which minimizes the probability of false positives). This test allows testing RNA samples and does not require complex equipment (such as thermal cyclers). It was expected that 10,000 tests would be produced within the first 10 days. On 13 June, a new announcement of another quick diagnosis test to detect the SARS-CoV-2 was made. Called ELA-chemstrip, it was developed by Argentine scientists from the National University of Quilmes and the National University of General San Martín.
  On 31 May, it was announced that Argentine scientists were also working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, a project subsidized by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation. On 10 July, pharmaceutical corporations Pfizer and BioNTech announced that the clinical trial for the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162 that was on phase I–II as of the day of the announcement, would begin on early-August in Argentina, soon after the trial began on Germany and the United States. After it would be approved by the ANMAT, the trial would take place at the Central Militar Hospital. The trial is made by mRNA constructs and consists of four vaccines, randomized, placebo-controlled, dose-finding and vaccine candidate-selection, and would begin its pha
caption: Potential candidates for forming SARS-CoV-2 proteins to prompt an immune response.
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