United States to send 3.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine to Argentina – telam

The shipment is part of the Biden administration’s donations to developing countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

About 3.5 million Moderna vaccines will arrive in Argentina on Saturday, sent by the United States government as part of President Joe Biden’s administration donations to developing countries.

According to White House sources confirmed to the Bloomberg News Agency, the shipment will arrive in the country on Saturday after a bilateral agreement between the two nations, and This is the largest donation to date from the United States to a Latin American country.

The coronavirus vaccine developed by the American biotechnology company Moderna was designed using messenger RNA technology so that the immune system learns to repel part of the viral protein, and it has been shown to be highly effective. in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years.

Aviation sources told Tlam that the two Aerolneas Argentinas flights that went to the United States as part of their operations to transport Moderna doses to the country will return in the early hours of Saturday morning.

These are two Airbus 330-200s that went to the city of Memphis to bring back the 3.5 million Moderna, with which the national company added a new shipment to the more than 32 million doses already received by Argentina, since the start of the pandemic.

The first of the flights, registered LV-FNL, took off Wednesday at 7.12 p.m. from Ezeiza and landed in Memphis on Thursday at 3.27 a.m., while the second, registered LV-FVH, took off from Ezeiza on Thursday at 3.00 a.m. 8:59 pm and hit the track in the North American city at 5:57 pm.

The two planes carried a small crew, since, by order of the American authorities, they must be in advance to the destination of loading the vaccines, to properly adapt the holds, since the vaccines must be transported at a temperature between minus 15 and minus 50 degrees, although after, if opened, they can be stored at temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees.

Three pilots, two cabin crew and four mechanics make up the crew of each flight, who waited for the hour to return home to a Memphis hotel.

The return is scheduled for the early hours of Saturday morning, after the departure of the two United States this Friday at noon, according to the schedule.

The first of the flights will land in Ezeiza around 1 a.m. and the next will land between 30 minutes and an hour later, depending on the time of departure from Memphis.

The cargo of 3.5 million doses will be distributed equally in the holds of the two planes.