Johnson & Johnson has started distributing vaccine in Europe: Spain will apply it to people aged 70 to 79

Pharmaceutical Janssen, part of the Johnson & Johnson conglomerate, On Monday began deliveries to all countries in the European Union of its single-dose vaccine against COVID-19. They should be distributed 55 million of doses to the 27 members of the bloc between April and June, confirmed the European Commission.

“Good news, delivery of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has started today across the European Union. This will help speed up access to vaccines for citizens and ensure we meet our vaccination target 70% of the adult population for the summerEuropean Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides wrote on Twitter.

In the case of Spain the first 300,000 vaccines will be administered in the 70 to 79 age group. Indeed, the country currently uses the Pfizer formula in those over 80 and that of AstraZeneca only in those under 65 (due to a series of alerts on possible cases of blood clots developed as an effect secondary), leaving a group unattended. In total, Spain expects to receive some five million doses (unlike other vaccines, only one is needed) from Janssen in the first half of 2021.

The European Commission is optimistic about the arrival of the Janssen vaccines, which thus add a new inoculant to the three already applied: Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. After a slow start to vaccination campaigns in the block – largely due to supply issues with the AstraZeneca vaccine and subsequent doubts about its safety due to its link to cases of thrombosis – many countries have registered in the first days of April, vaccine administration record Data.

The four companies are committed to providing 360 million doses between April and June, un cálculo que ya tiene en cuenta que AstraZeneca ha anunciado que no cumplirá con lo pactado en su contracto con Bruselas y entregará 70 million dosis en vez de 180. Johnson & Johnson compromise themselves to enviar otras 120 million dosis durante el tercer quarter of the year.

According to an internal calculation of the European Union, Spain could have the doses (between Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson) to vaccinate more than 27 million people, 57.41% of the population, by the end of June, by counting on all pharmaceutical laboratories to comply with the deliveries of vaccines stipulated in their contracts. The estimate is more optimistic than that presented last week by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who estimated that Spain will have 25 million people vaccinated by July 19 after the Council of Ministers meeting.

Some small countries estimate that they will have sufficient doses to cover larger percentages of their population: Malta hopes to have 93.1% of its population vaccinated by the end of June and Denmark with 79.88%, exceeding the average rate of its European partners. On the other side of the list, four would remain below half of the vaccinated population at the end of the first semester: Czech Republic, 44.67%, Slovakia, 45.58%, Bulgaria, 45.21% and Croatia , 45.28%.

As of April 11, 15.34% of people in the European Union had received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The speed of the campaign at the supranational level has increased in recent days: according to the specialized site Our world in dataOn April 5, inoculants were applied to 0.35% of the population, down from 0.46 by the end of the week.

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