Illa expects to receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine for 10 million people by early 2021

The Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, expects to have 20 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine against the coronavirus at the beginning of the year, with which 10 million people could be immunized.

The US pharmaceutical and its German partner BioNTech announced Monday that their vaccine is "90% effective", which sent the stock markets higher.

“We are going to be attentive to the specific terms in which this contract is signed, but we estimate that around 20 million doses could come from the Pfizer company.

It is a double dose vaccine, therefore it could immunize about 10 million people, "he said in an interview this Tuesday on La 1 de RTVE.

En español

• Spain hopes to have Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine for 10 million people by early 2021

"The vaccines will be free, they will be distributed through the National Health System," Illa added.

"For months there has been a working group with the autonomous communities and the Ministry of Health to set the parameters of who should be administered", he explained, although "the logical thing", according to Illa, is that they are the elderly and the health personnel the first to be vaccinated.

According to Illa, between this week and the next, he hopes to sign several contracts for the supply of vaccines, among them with Pfizer, so that "if everything went well", the first doses would arrive in early 2021, and even if it were "very , very good ”, they could do it later this year.

"At the beginning of January, perhaps with other vaccines, we will be able to start a vaccination phase and we calculate that around May we will be able to have a sufficiently relevant percentage of the Spanish and European population vaccinated, because the vaccines will be distributed equitably in all the countries of the European Union ”, he said.

On video, statements by the Government's spokesman, María Jesús Montero.J.

HELLÍN (EUROPA PRESS) / VIDEO: QUALITY

The data announced the day before by Pfizer comes from a first interim analysis not published in scientific journals, but reviewed by a panel of outside experts.

The results have been obtained in its phase 3 test, the last stage before formally requesting its homologation.

This efficacy of protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus was achieved seven days after the second dose of vaccine and 28 days after the first, indicated the pharmacist.

43,538 people participated in the tests announced by the company.

Of the different groups that have received both the vaccine and the placebo, 94 have been infected.

The head of Health has ruled out mandatory vaccination.

"The government is going to do what we have been doing, explain the truth to the public, and the truth is that vaccines save lives."

Illa has warned that the Executive will be "very clear and forceful" against "people who tell lies and play anti-science", in reference to the anti-vaccines and deniers.

"It is a promising and relevant step, but there is much ahead and we must keep our guard very high", because the epidemiological situation in Spain "continues to be very worrying", the minister stressed.

"We are already seeing about five days with a relative stabilization in the number of cases", with a cumulative incidence per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days of around 500 positives on the national average, he said.

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