Spain will receive 4.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine in 12 weeks

Spain will receive 4.5 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech in the next 12 weeks.

There will be 350,000 weekly doses that will be distributed among the autonomous communities to progressively immunize the population starting with the first risk group: the elderly who live in residences.

But, before that, a first symbolic delivery of a few thousand vaccines will be received this Saturday, which will arrive in Guadalajara.

This will be the city where the first injection is given on Sunday, December 27.

There the photo of the first puncture will be taken.

But it will do so only a few minutes before the rest of the autonomous communities, which will begin to vaccinate that same day, as announced this Wednesday by the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa.

The reason they arrive in Guadalajara is that Pfizer has a warehouse there, and it is the company that makes the deliveries.

Sources familiar with the process explain that they are centralized there on the first day for logistical reasons: the vaccine requires a temperature conservation below 60 degrees below zero.

They arrive in boxes of 5,000 units that can maintain this temperature, but once opened, if they are not stored in ultra-cold, they must be defrosted and kept in a refrigerator between two and eight degrees, something that will last for five days.

As only a few thousand doses will arrive on the first day, there is no box for each autonomous community, so this process has to be centralized from Guadalajara.

The vaccines will reach all parts of Spain, including the islands, Ceuta and Melilla, no later than the 27th early in the morning so that they can start vaccination, Illa said.

Once this first symbolic vaccination is done, the immunizations will begin to arrive from Puurs, the Belgian factory of Pfizer, directly to the autonomous communities in proportion to the population they have in residences.

They will store them in centers that in most cases have not been made public for security reasons and from there they will distribute them first to the centers for the elderly.

In fact, the Ministry of the Interior has demanded that these sites be kept secret.

Yes it has revealed, for example Aragón, which will keep them in the Clinical Hospital before distributing the doses to the specific vaccination points in the community.

There it has two freezers with a storage capacity of 193,050 doses per freezer (386,100, in total).

Although at the moment the exact number of doses corresponding to each community in this first phase has not been revealed, this capacity is more than enough for the first batches.

• The vaccine road to Spain

• These are the groups into which the population will be divided to be vaccinated against covid

• See if you have priority for the vaccine

These stores will be distributed first among the centers for the elderly, where teams of nurses who have been trained in their management will prod the residents.

Later they will also reach health centers and hospitals.

It will be a deployment very similar to that carried out with the influenza campaign, although this vaccine has different logistical requirements.

First there is the need and ultra cold;

but, once it is thawed, the transport is done through the same channels as those of any other medicine that requires cold.

The next added difficulty is that each vial has five doses, which have to be diluted separately, so the process is somewhat slower and more cumbersome than with other injections.

With the 4.5 million doses of Pfizer it will be possible to vaccinate 2.25 million people, since it requires two punctures, 21 days apart.

This practically covers the first phase contemplated in the vaccination plan, which includes four groups: people who live in social health centers, their caregivers (whether they are health care or not), health workers and large dependents.

These number approximately 2.5 million people.

Although the Pfizer vaccine will begin, it is expected that this first phase will also include Moderna's, whose evaluation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is scheduled for January 6. and that has already been approved in the US.

In this way, there would be more than enough injections to vaccinate these 2.5 million people in the next 12 weeks.

Although the ministry has not officially announced who will be the next group to be vaccinated, it is more than likely that it will be for those over 65 and the chronically ill.

If all goes according to plan, they may be starting to get the vaccine in early spring at the latest.

The plans of the autonomous communities

The weekly batches will arrive at each autonomy at the beginning of the week.

Some regional councilors have revealed details of how these first bars will be.

The vice president of

Madrid

has explained that the remittances will arrive on Mondays, just after acknowledging that he already knew exactly how many doses he will receive for the start of the campaign, on Sunday 27. Aguado also pointed out that there are 40 teams prepared and that they have been bought two million syringes to be used specifically in the vaccination against covid-19, reports

Manuel Viejo

.

Andalusia

, for its part, will receive 1,980 doses on Sunday, as specified by the Andalusian counselor in the field, Jesús Aguirre.

The Board has established two storage centers, one in Seville, for western Andalusia, and another in Granada for the eastern part.

When the vaccine arrives, it will be distributed among 45 or 47 primary care centers, depending on the number of doses, and will reach 37 hospitals, reports

Margot Molina

.

“We have 178 vaccination teams prepared with more than 500 nurses specifically trained to administer the Pfizer vaccine;

73 medical teams will take care of the residences for the elderly and social and health centers, which is where to begin to administer the vaccine ”, has advanced the epidemiologist Inmaculada Salcedo, spokesperson for the Andalusian Committee of Experts after the weekly meeting of the Advisory Council on Public Health Alerts.

For its part,

Navarra

has even specified which people are going to be vaccinated on Sunday: 150 older people from the El Vergel public residence in Pamplona.

The citations will be made for the two doses, both to residents and to professionals in the social health field.

The counselor Induráin has said that the weekly batches will arrive "on Mondays or Tuesdays."

🔴LIVE / ZUZENEAN.

#CoronavirusNavarra.

The counselors Induráin and Maeztu present the vaccination plan against # COVID19.

#KoronabirusaNafarroa.

Indurain eta Maeztu kontseilariek # COVID19 -aren aurkako txertaketa-plana aurkeztu dute.

https://t.co/1fmRHyn41P

- News / Berriak - Government of Navarra (@noticiasgob_na) December 23, 2020

The

Valencian Community will

vaccinate this Sunday 800 people from seven residences, between users and social health personnel, who do not have any outbreak of covid-19 or who exceeded them more than 90 days ago.

Each residence must have two nurses and a doctor for vaccination, reports

Ferran Bono.

The Ministry of Health will provide the missing staff, as well as a coordinator who will supervise the process.

As of Monday, the Valencian Community will receive 30,000 doses a week, according to department sources.

In

Castilla y León,

133 nurses will begin to vaccinate in all the provinces this Sunday "in a testimonial way", said the Minister of Health, Verónica Casado, this Wednesday.

Casado added: “Let's hope it doesn't delay any further.

On Monday the reception and distribution will take place and, later on Tuesday, the start is expected ”, informs

Juan Navarro.

The forecast is that 126,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines will arrive in the first month, so that with this first batch, about 63,000 people could be vaccinated.

The Balearic Islands will

also start on Sunday, reports

Lucía Bohórquez.

The Government plans to vaccinate at a rate of between 500 and 1,000 citizens.

In

Catalonia,

the Department of Health has sent to nursing homes the document that inmates and workers will have to fill out to give their consent to be vaccinated from Sunday.

Catalonia will receive this weekend, probably Saturday, 215,000 doses of the product to vaccinate 106,000 people.

In

Asturias,

the regional government does not know the exact number of doses it will receive to start the process, reports Efe.

The Principality will begin with the residences with the highest number of users.

A team of 148 professionals will provide the vaccine.

Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- Restrictions search engine: What can I do in my municipality?

- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in the world

- Download the tracking application for Spain

- Guide to action against the disease