The first batch of the vaccine against Covid-19 developed by Pfizer-BioNTech arrives today in Portugal and includes 9.750 doses for health professionals in university hospitals in Porto, São João, Coimbra, Lisbon North and Lisbon Central.
The refrigerated trucks with the doses foreseen for countries of the European Union (EU) left the Belgian factory of the North American pharmaceutical company, located in Puurs, in the northeast of Belgium, on Wednesday morning, under strong security measures, with two vehicles from police forces to escort each of the three heavy vehicles after loading.
The start of vaccination on Sunday will be a common initiative among EU member states and occurs in the same week that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) considered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine safe, for which it granted an authorization “for use of emergency ", in a process that advanced at an unprecedented speed.
This “symbolic” batch of 9.750 doses, as the Prime Minister, António Costa, cataloged, was, however, reinforced on Wednesday with the announcement by the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, of the anticipation of the delivery of over 70.200 doses, scheduled to arrive on Monday, bringing the total available for administration until the end of the year to 79.950 vaccines.
The expansion of the number of vaccines already in this start-up of the vaccination plan against covid-19 will lead, according to Marta Temido, to an increase in the number of selected professionals and hospitals covered, with the minister assuming her hope for full coverage of the network. National Health Service (SNS) hospital. It is also planned to extend vaccination at this stage to residential structures for institutionalized people.
Between December and the first quarter of 2021, which corresponds to the period of the first phase defined by the 'task-force' responsible for the vaccination plan, Portugal expects to receive 1,2 million vaccines, distributed over three periods: 312.975 doses in December and January, 429 thousand doses in February and 487.500 in March.
The spread of a new and more transmissible strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the past two weeks - with a particular focus on the UK, but which has already reached other countries - cast some doubt on the effectiveness of this vaccine. However, the company BioNTech has already come to ensure the technical capacity to produce a new version of the vaccine, if necessary.
Comments