Date Published: 28/01/2021
ARCHIVED - 422,000 extra vaccine doses provided as health services are forced to postpone vaccinations
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Problems in the supply chains are seriously hampering the Covid immunization program in Spain
Madrid suspends first dose vaccines for the next two weeks
Frustration is continuing to grow throughout Spain, and indeed in the remainder of the EU, at the interruptions to the supplies of coronavirus vaccines due to problems reported by both Pfizer and Moderna, and with the dispute escalating between the EU and AstraZeneca prior to latter’s vaccine being approved by the European Medicines Agency, the Ministry of Health made a last-ditch attempt on Wednesday to ensure that the momentum of the immunization campaign is not lost completely.
With various regional health authorities warning that they are on the point of having to postpone further vaccinations due to lack of supplies, the Ministry distributed a further 422,955 doses of the Pfizer product, bringing the total so far to 1,769,055. As a result, the regional health services now have further resources at their disposal after it was reported on Tuesday that almost 96 per cent of the vaccines distributed had already been administered: that percentage is now down to 76.7 per cent, and at least for the time being more patients can receive their first and second doses.
The new deliveries, though, will have to be rationed at least until Monday, when the next batches are scheduled to arrive, and the rate of immunization continues to be far slower than that reported in the UK. In Britain the number of doses administered is regularly between 250,000 and 500,000 per day, while on Tuesday it was possible to perform only 65,245 injections in Spain.
In the region of Madrid the issue of under-supply has become extreme and the regional government warned on Wednesday that for the next two weeks no more patients would be receiving their first doses. Instead, supplies will be used to provide second doses in homes for the elderly and for front-line health workers, and it already seems inevitable that in and around the national capital it will be impossible to immunize 70 per cent of the population before the summer, as had been intended.
In this context, Ignacio Aguado of the regional government urged the Minister of Health “to move heaven and earth” in an effort to increase the rate of supply: if not, some of his colleagues that by June only 15 per cent of the region’s population will have been vaccinated.
Similarly, in Catalunya there is a risk that the second dose will have to be delayed for many patients, and on Wednesday the health service reported that of 217,000 doses received up to that point only 17,000 remained in stock. In other regions it was reported that the number of doses administered actually exceeded the total received, a feat achieved by using the “sixth dose” of the vials supplied by Pfizer, and in the Comunidad Valenciana scheduled inoculations had already been cancelled at two hospitals.
In the Basque Country and Asturias the authorities decided reluctantly last week that further first doses should be suspended, and this situation is one which is being repeated to a certain extent all over Spain.
Unfortunately, while the emergency deliveries announced by the Ministry will provide a stopgap solution in the short term, it is seeming more and more likely that the long-awaited immunization program will take significantly longer throughout the country than had been hoped. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has already warned the tourist industry that Spain will not be ready to welcome visitors from abroad this summer after all, and if the current problems are not solved quickly it is very doubtful that a significant degree of herd immunity can be achieved this year.