The first 800 thousand doses of the operation arrive tomorrow to bring 8 million vaccines from China

The first 800,000 Sinopharm vaccines, out of a total of 8 million that the national government has acquired from China, will arrive tomorrow from Beijing on an Aerolineas Argentinas flight, as part of an operation that will involve the daily arrival of flights throughout the country. week long. then, in order to strengthen the Strategic Vaccination Plan which already has 27 million doses.

The mega-operation developing the flag line began yesterday with the departure of the Airbus 330-200, registration LV-FVH, under number AR1070, which took off from Ezeiza international airport at 12.59 p.m. and landed today at Beijing Capital International Airport. at 1:15 p.m. Argentine time (0.15 local time).

As planned, the plane will return tomorrow, around 7:00 p.m. with the first shipment of 800 thousand doses.

From Wednesday 7 of next week, successive flights will start taking off daily, between Thursday 8 and Thursday 15.

The returns of these flights are scheduled every day between Friday 9 and Saturday 17, when the last of this first stage will arrive, completing at that time the first 8 million doses.

During the months of August and September, similar operations will be carried out to transport an additional 8 million each month until the conclusion of the agreement of 24 million signed by the national government with the Chinese laboratory which supplies the vaccines.

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 that started yesterday will follow the same route as the previous flights to Beijing, making an intermediate technical stopover in Madrid, for refueling.

It is expected that all flights will develop the same take-off and landing pattern, both in origins and in destinations and stopovers, with a departure from Ezeiza International Airport at 12:50, which after approximately 12 flight hours, will land at Barajas airport. , in Madrid, at 1 a.m. (Argentine time) the next day.

There, they will make a technical stopover for refueling, which will take about an hour or an hour and a half, after which they will begin the departure for Beijing, which will require a little more or less than 11 hours, with which this plane would land in the Chinese capital around 1 p.m. in Argentina, around 24 hours after leaving Buenos Aires and coinciding with the take-off of Ezeiza, of another of the planes of the operation.

After about three hours at Beijing airport to load the vaccines, they will begin the return to the stopover in Madrid, on a flight that will take around 11:30 am, from Barajas, after refueling. Ezeiza between 52 and 54 hours after your departure, depends on delays in take-offs and landings.

This means that between July 9 and July 15 there will be at certain times of the day three Aerolineas Argentinas flights operating between Buenos Aires, Madrid and Beijing and vice versa, two of which will cross in Europe and two more in Brazil. . to the extent that the scheduled times are maintained.

In any case, a crew of 20 people will travel on the flights, including 10 captains and co-pilots and the rest of the technical staff and cabin crew.

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

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

Aerolineas Argentinas has carried out a total of 28 flights for the transport of vaccines since the start of the pandemic, including 7 to Beijing and in which 5,195,200 doses have been brought into the country.

In addition, so far, 21 flights to Moscow have been carried out, carrying 11,263,375 doses of the vaccine produced by the Gamaleya Institute, so that in the total of operations carried out by the flag line, 16,458,575 doses have been transferred.

So far, a total of 26,847,730 doses have arrived in the country, of which 11,265,830 correspond to Sputnik V, (9,375,670 for component 1 and 1,890,160 for component 2); 6 million to Sinopharm; 580,000 to AstraZeneca-Covishield, 1,944,000 to AstraZeneca via the WHO COVAX mechanism and 7,057,900 to AstraZeneca and Oxford, whose active ingredient was produced in Argentina.

In contrast, in June a new record was reached with a total of 8,410,643 requests nationwide, with a daily average of 280,355 vaccinations, while the arrival of vaccines also marked a historic figure with 8,074,785 doses .

On the other hand, the Decree of Necessity and Emergency (DNU) was published today, which establishes a legal framework for the development of the national vaccination plan aimed at “generating acquired immunity against Covid-19, including the protection of children and adolescents ”. .

The regulation allows the opening of negotiations with all laboratories that manufacture vaccines against the coronavirus, as announced yesterday at a press conference by the Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti; and by the Legal and Technical Secretary, Vilma Ibarra. (Telam)