ARCHIVED - 6.8 million Covid vaccination doses due in Spain in February and March

Immunization program about to speed up as the government still hopes to achieve 70 per cent coverage by the summer

After threatening to grind to a halt due to lack of supplies over the last fortnight the coronavirus immunization campaign seems set to gather momentum again in Spain during February, with the Minister for Health having confirmed that over 4 million doses are due to be delivered this month.

With a further 2.8 million doses said to be guaranteed in March this will make it possible to immunize some 3.3 million people (with two doses each), equivalent to around 7 per cent of the country’s population. This is still a long way short of the objective of 70 per cent, but outwardly at least the government still maintains that that target can be met by the summer.

Nonetheless, the sheer logistics of the task invite some scepticism after the problems encountered since the first vaccines were administered in late December.

The doses on their way to Spain will be supplied by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, with Pfizer alone promising 1,779,570 in February and another 2,705,040 in March. Moderna are expected to deliver 412,000 in February and after the resolution of differences with the EU AstraZeneca, are now expected to provide a further 1,810,575 before the end of March.

Armed with these supplies, the health services across the country will be attempting to administer at least 120,000 doses per day, stepping up the rate of just 41,000 which has been recorded so far with the administration of the first 1.67 million vaccine doses. By way of comparison, it is perhaps worth noting that in the UK (with a population of around 67 million as opposed to 47 million in Spain) daily figures of between 300,000 and 500,000 are regularly reported.

It has also been announced that the Spanish Interterritorial Health System has decided that the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be given to those aged 80 or over, and it is thought that age limit could be brought down to 65 later in the week. The policy is in line with those adopted in numerous other EU states as well as the UK and Switzerland on the grounds that there is insufficient data to guarantee the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the elderly, and in fact Switzerland it has been decided not to allow its use at all in any age group.

Meanwhile, Carolina Darias, the Minister for Health, expects authorization to be given soon for the vaccines developed by Jansen and Curevac, in both of which the third and final phase of clinical testing is about to end. The Russian Sputnik V vaccine may also be used in Spain if the European Medicines Agency authorizes its use and the EU makes purchases.

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