Spain receives the first 35,700 doses of Moderna vaccine

A worker receives a box with the first Moderna vaccines arriving in Spain, this Tuesday, in a capture of a video from the Ministry of Health.

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Spain received the first 35,700 doses of Moderna's vaccine this morning, the first delivery of a total of 600,000 that will arrive before the end of February.

They will do so at an increasing rate: just over 50,000 in two weeks, another 127,000 in a month and 383,000 more in the third week of that month.

This was announced by the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, this Tuesday after the meeting of the Council of Ministers.

The doses have arrived early in the morning in 357 boxes aboard a truck from Belgium, which has transported them to a warehouse of the Ministry of Health in the center of the peninsula.

With Moderna, there are already two vaccines available in Spain.

The first, from Pfizer / BioNTech, has been administered since December 27, 2020, and 350,000 are received weekly.

Illa has also remarked as a good sign the authorization requested this Tuesday by the English laboratory AstraZeneca to the European Medicines Agency (EMA, in its acronym in English) to distribute its vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, in the European Union.

Illa stressed that the epidemiological situation in Spain, with several communities registering record increases in infections, is "very worrying."

"Very tough weeks are coming" and a "very complicated month of January", he insisted.

The minister, despite everything, has been confident that, like "it was achieved in October", Spain will be able to bend the epidemiological curve, although "the measures adopted [to reduce infections] will still take about two weeks to supply effect".

Illa has avoided considering the declaration of a new harsh confinement as a possibility, despite repeated questions from journalists.

He has also declined to go into details when asked for his opinion on whether there had been an excess of relaxation during last Christmas, as the emergency director of Health, Fernando Simón, hinted on Monday.

The arrival of the new vaccines from the American pharmaceutical company Moderna will not substantially alter the immunization plan started at the end of 2020. The new stocks will be added to those of Pfizer / BioNTech and will be administered as planned to vulnerable groups, caregivers and health personnel.

Illa has announced that "the objective is that by the end of this week all the residences have administered the first dose" and that "on January 18 receive the second" the first people who were vaccinated in Spain, the inmates in a residence in Guadalajara .

Similar efficacy profile

Both vaccines have shown a similar efficacy and safety profile during clinical trials.

Both are based on the same RNA technology, although that of Pfizer / BioNTech is more demanding in transport and storage conditions, since it needs to be kept at about 70º below zero, while that of Moderna is stable at -20º.

Moderna ensures that its vaccine, of which two doses are also needed, guarantees at least one year of protection against the coronavirus, including the new variant discovered in the United Kingdom.

The Rovi laboratories have already prepared their plant in San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid) to start producing this medicine, but it will not manufacture the active principle, but will instead be in charge of producing vials, thawing, packaging and labeling the serum.

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