Coronavirus: almost 100,000 fewer Sinopharm vaccines will arrive from China than announced

02/25/2021 11:34 AM

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 02/25/2021 11:53 AM

A new Aerolineas Argentinas flight will arrive in the country this Thursday with 904 thousand doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, despite the fact that

the Government had announced that there would be one million

.

The difference, they argued, is due to a question of the aircraft's capacity.

The flight, which departed on Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. from Ezeiza International Airport, will arrive at 9:30 p.m. this Thursday after more than 54 hours of operation if the loading time and the intermediate stopover made in Madrid in both directions are considered.

The Chinese Sinopharm vaccine had been endorsed by the Ministry of Health days ago, amid the scandal over the VIP vaccination, in what was the first public measure by Carla Vizzotti at the head of the health portfolio.

As specified, "the 904 thousand doses were fully stowed in the warehouses of the Airbus 330 -200 of Aerolineas Argentinas and in special containers called 'envirotainers' that have maximum efficiency for the transfer of this type of cargo and active control of temperature since the vaccines

must be preserved at a minimum of 2 degrees and a maximum of 8

".

In the process of loading 🇨🇳.

# FlagAirline pic.twitter.com/z9AlcJWKn8

- Aerolineas Argentinas (@Aerolineas_AR) February 24, 2021

The flight that will arrive this Thursday night

is the fifth made by Airlines in search of vaccines

but the first to be made to the People's Republic of China.

In the 4 previous flights, from Moscow, 1,220,000 doses of Sputnik V arrived in the country.

Vizzotti signed resolution 688/2021 on Sunday that authorizes the vaccine on an emergency basis, which is developed by Sinopharm in collaboration with the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Laboratory of China.

The measure was taken after receiving the approval of ANMAT, which evaluated the data from the phase 3 trial. The process - foreseen in the Vaccine Law (27,573) - was similar to the one applied to give the green light to the Russian Sputnik V .

In Argentina the trials were carried out on a control population of 3,008 volunteers who participated in a "randomized study" (they receive a random vaccine or placebo).

The person in charge of the Sinopharm trials in Argentina was the infectious disease specialist Pedro Cahn, founder of the Fundación Huiuda and a member of the advisory committee of President Alberto Fernández.

"It is extremely safe, in the trials we have not registered serious adverse events related to the vaccine, so from the point of view of safety I can give you a guarantee," said Cahn days before consulting the

Télam

agency

.

JPE