Pfizer delays vaccine deliveries to 8 EU countries: Spain

MADRID – Pfizer has postponed delivery of new batches of its coronavirus vaccine to eight European countries, including Spain, the Spanish Ministry of Health said on Monday, a day after the EU began its immunization campaign.

Pfizer’s Spanish branch informed Madrid on Sunday evening of the delay in shipments to the eight nations due to a “problem in the loading and shipping process” at its plant in Belgium, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

It did not specify which European nations, other than Spain, were affected.

Pfizer has informed the ministry that the problem “was already solved” but that the next delivery of vaccines “will arrive a few hours late” and will arrive in Spain on Tuesday, one day later than expected, according to the statement.

Asked about the delay during an interview with Radio Ser, the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, said that it was due to a problem “linked to the control of the temperature” of the shipments that was “apparently fixed.”

The vaccine should be stored at ultra-low temperatures of approximately -70 degrees Celsius (-112 Fahrenheit) before being shipped to distribution centers in specially designed refrigerated boxes filled with dry ice.

Once out of ultra-low temperature storage, the vaccine must be kept between 2 Celsius and 8 Celsius to remain effective for up to five days.

Spain is expected to receive 350,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine per week for the next three months.

Most nations in the European Union began their immunization campaigns against the virus this weekend with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, starting with the elderly, healthcare workers and politicians.

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