The arrival of new doses and local production accelerate the vaccination plan – Telam

The arrival of new shipments of AstraZeneca and Sputnik vaccines, with which Argentina surpassed 18 million doses this week, accelerated the pace of the coronavirus vaccination plan across the country, to which was added the new the imminent start of local production of the Russian vaccine. .

This week, 2,148,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, produced jointly with Mexico, arrived in the country, while Aerolneas Argentinas – in its eighteenth service from Moscow – brought 815,150 doses of Sputnik V, the largest shipment that the national company brought from Mexico. in one flight.

For the next few hours, according to the government, a new flight from Moscow should bring 100,000 doses of component 1 and 400,000 doses of component 2 expected, to complete the vaccinations already started.

La novedad de este vuelo ser que traer tambin un cargamento del principio activo de la vacuna rusa para que empiece de inmediato la produccin en Argentina, que estar a cargo del Laboratorio Richmond, con el objetivo de desarrollar unas 500,000 dosis por semana, segn se anunci this week.

Local production, a new step in the Argentinian vaccination campaign

The arrival of 900,000 additional doses of AstraZeneca, Argentina’s co-production with Mexico, is also confirmed for Monday 7 at 8:50 am.

To date, Argentina has already received 18,450,150 doses of vaccines:
• Sputnik V: 8 933 895 (7 793 735 for component 1 and 1 140 160 for component 2)
• Sinopharm: 4,000,000
• AstraZeneca – Covishield: 580,000
• AstraZeneca via the Covax mechanism: 1,944,000
• AstraZeneca – University of Oxford: 2,992,200 (its active ingredient was produced in Argentina)

For its part, Aerolneas Argentinas made 18 flights to the Russian Federation in which a total of 8,948,440 doses were transferred and, in addition, five flights to Beijing, People’s Republic of China, in which 3,659,200 vaccines from Sinopharm have arrived in the country, so to date the flag line has already carried 12,607,640 vaccines.

With this influx of vaccines, on Friday the record for daily vaccinations was again surpassed with 356,454 vaccinations applied nationwide, according to data from the Nation’s Ministry of Health and, given the past seven days, from Thursday 27 to Friday included. , 1,823,824 applications of the different vaccines were made throughout the country.

According to data from the Public Vaccination Monitor, the online registry that shows the vaccination operation in real time throughout Argentina, 17,495,490 vaccines have been distributed until Saturday morning, of which 13,730,521 have already been applied. : 10,733,428 people received the first dose and 2,997,093 already have their full immunization schedule.

The report indicates that the daily average is 279,193 doses and points out that the day of the highest vaccination was, until yesterday, June 1, with 304,037 inoculations.

Relative to the age group, among people over 80 years old, 78% had already been vaccinated with the first dose, and 23.8% with both doses; Among people aged 70 to 79 years, 86.6% have already been vaccinated with the first dose, and 23.4% with both; Of those aged 60 to 69, 83.3% had already been vaccinated with the first dose, and 15.5% with both. Finally, among people aged 20 to 59, 17% have already received the first dose and 6.2% both.

Argentine production of Sputnik V vaccines

Regarding the local production of vaccines, President Alberto Fernández and his counterpart from the Russian Federation, Vladimir Poutin, announced on Friday the start of production of Sputnik V in Argentina, which will be in charge of the Richmond laboratory, and with the arrival from Moscow in the next few hours of the active ingredient, the task will begin immediately.

“We have started the concrete work to start producing Sputnik V in Argentina,” the Argentine president said during a video conference he shared from Olivos’ residence with Putin.

In this maraco, he announced on Sunday that “a plane from Moscow bringing back the active principle to immediately start production in Argentina”.

Putin, in turn, said the Sputnik V vaccine is “one of the most effective in the world, at 97.6%” and maintained that “it is registered in 66 countries”.

On the other hand, he signaled that in the plane which will leave Moscow on Sunday “vaccines will arrive for Argentina and also for Paraguay”, while he will finish “bringing Mexico and Russia together” so that the vaccine ends. by also reaching Mexico. people.

“If all goes well, production starts next week”“

President of Richmond Laboratories

Laboratorios Richmond president Marcelo Figueiras, who authorized the start of manufacturing in Argentina, told Tlam that the current plant has the capacity to formulate and package up to 500,000 doses of Sputnik V per week, although that he specified that the production will be subject to the quantity of active ingredient shipped from Russia.

“If all goes well, production starts next week; right now they are fermenting the active ingredient of component 1 of the vaccine in Moscow and as soon as they are finished they send it here, ”Figueiras explained.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) notified Richmond on Wednesday that the Gamaleya Center had approved the samples sent by the laboratory to Russia last April, a necessary step for the implementation of production.

Faced with the arrival of new vaccines, the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, and the health authorities of the provinces that make up the Federal Health Council (Cofesa) defined on Friday that they be included in the Strategic Plan for vaccination against Covid-19 to the risk-free age groups, segmented into five years and according to the risk of exposure and the professional condition, among other conditions, once the vaccination provided for in this strategy has been carried out.

“We need to keep working to reach the target population of over 60s and 18-59 with risky conditions,” and “then go ahead and capture those 55-59 as soon as possible “Vizzotti said after the meeting.