say Europe will catch up in July and Russia in September

While globally there is an uneven race to find vaccines, there are already countries that are starting to put a date on the much desired collective immunity against the coronavirus. An expert believes that the European Union will achieve this in mid-July, while President Vladimir Putin assured that Russia would get it end of September.

The European commissioner in charge of internal trade and head of the working group on vaccines, Thierry Breton, assured that next summer (boreal) should “be similar to last year”, when the pandemic has diminished, thanks to the campaigns vaccination program in the European Union.

Breton underlined that from now on “we will have to accelerate” and that it is up to “Member States to organize and accelerate the vaccination campaign”

“To have 420 million doses to be administered in three and a half months “, he finished

“The goal is to vaccinate 70 percent European citizens before the summer, even if it is difficult ”, declared the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, today during a broadcast on RAI 3.

Indeed, the European Union has strengthened the production of Covid-19 vaccines on the continent thanks to the approval granted on Friday to three new factories by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)

In this way, it should partially unblock the supply problems and increase the delivery capacity of the manufacturers AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech.

The EMA Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has approved the plant of AstraZeneca partner Halix company in Leiden, the Netherlands. This factory, which was already producing vaccines, was unable to distribute them in EU countries because it did not have authorization from the EMA, which must first assess that it meets GMP standards. (good manufacturing practices).

In this way, AstraZeneca will bring to four the total number of centers authorized for the production of the active substance of the product, according to the EMA.

Russia, in September

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the country could obtain collective immunity against Covid-19 by the end of September.

If the mass vaccination continues at the current rate, about 70% of adults in Russia will have received the vaccine by the end of summer (end of winter in Argentina), thus reaching the herd immunity threshold, said Putin on a talk show.

Earlier this week, he reported that 6.3 million people in Russia had received the first dose of a national vaccine and 4.3 million had received two injections since the mass vaccination began in early December.

Putin received his first dose of a domestic vaccine on Tuesday, but the Kremlin has not released any photos or videos of the inoculation.

The president assured that the three domestic vaccines – Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac – are “effective, reliable and safe” and that after application, there were no serious side effects.

Source: ANSA and Xinhua

DD