Airlines launched operation to bring in 8 million doses of Sinopharm from China

Aerolneas Argentinas has started an operation to transfer 8 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China in ten flights that will take off between now and July 15, the first of which left this Friday shortly before 1:00 p.m., while the others will take place from mid-next week at the rate of one service per day.

The Airbus 330-200, registered LV-FVH, under number AR1070, took off from Ezeiza international airport at 12.59 p.m. and should return on Sunday around 7 p.m. with the first shipment of 800 thousand doses.

The flight’s departure was confirmed this Friday morning by Flag Line President Pablo Ceriani via his Twitter account.

“July has arrived and great news for the vaccination campaign. We will perform 10 @Aerolineas_AR flights to China to bring 8 million doses of Sinopharm to the country. The first will take off today at 12.59pm, the 9 others will be released consecutively from July 7 to 15, ”the manager wrote on the social network.

“These 10 flights are excellent news because in a few days Argentina will have a huge amount of new doses, which will further accelerate this unprecedented vaccination campaign”“

Pablo Ceriani

In this sense, he added: “A year ago, we went to China for the first time to bring medical supplies, today we are preparing an unprecedented operation with 10 flights in a row for bring vaccines into the country. Three of our A330s will be dedicated to this task and will head to Beijing with a technical stopover in Madrid ”.

“Since we started this logistical task, we have carried out 28 operations, bringing more than 15 million doses to the country. Having a national airline allows the country to have a rapid and efficient response to every operational need in the transfer of vaccines, ”Ceriani concluded in his tweet.

For the operation, three Airbus 330-200s from the company’s long-haul fleet will be used, which will make the trips almost uninterrupted for the next three months.

The series of trips began this Friday with the departure of flight AR1070 from Ezeiza, following the same route as the previous flights which had as their destination Beijing: an intermediate technical stopover in Madrid, where it is expected to arrive around 5 ( Spanish local time, 0 Argentine time).

There, it will stay until around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, and, after refueling, will leave for the Chinese capital, where it plans to land at midnight in Beijing.

It is stipulated that he undertakes the return to Madrid at around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday (Beijing time), arriving at around 9:00 a.m. the same day in the Spanish capital and, after a stopover of just over an hour to refuel. at Barajas airport, take off again to land at Ezeiza international airport around 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.

The next 9 flights will repeat the same pattern, starting in the middle of the following week and on consecutive days.

“These 10 flights are excellent news because in a few days Argentina will have a huge amount of new doses, which will further accelerate this unprecedented vaccination campaign,” Ceriani said.

The 8 million vaccines are part of the recently concluded agreement with China National Pharmaceutical Group Corp whereby 24 million vaccines will reach the country between July and September.

However, this morning, flight AR1063 arrived from Moscow with a shipment of 1,141,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Aerolneas Argentinas carried out a total of 21 flights to Moscow during which 11,263,375 doses of the vaccine produced by the Gamaleya Institute were transported. In addition, from Beijing, a total of 5,195,200 arrived in the country in 7 flights. Thus, in 28 operations, a total of 16,458,575 doses were delivered.