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GET READY: Today began the shipment of vaccine teams to the municipalities of the country. This picture is from the vaccination in America on Monday. Photo: JOHN MANIACI / REUTERS
On Tuesday, the sending of vaccination teams to the municipalities begins.
The distribution of vaccine equipment begins in the north of the country and the supplier works towards the south in the next two weeks.
It is zip codes 8000 and 9000 that get the equipment first, Deputy Health Director Geir Stene Larsen tells VG. This includes Nordland and Troms and Finnmark.
– We send about half the equipment before Christmas, it should be enough that all municipalities can start vaccination as soon as the vaccines arrive in the country, he says.
The vaccination team is distributed according to the number of inhabitants, so that all municipalities have the equipment to vaccinate an equal proportion of the population. It is the Norwegian Health Directorate that sends.
The NIPH is preparing to receive the first doses of the vaccine in January, as are the municipalities, which are in charge of carrying out the vaccination.
Before the new year, all municipalities will receive enough equipment so that they can start vaccination as soon as the first vaccines arrive.
By Friday, December 18, all municipalities must have a vaccination plan prepared. But before they can get vaccinated, they must also have the equipment in place.
VACCINE TEAM: Deputy Health Director Geir Stene Larsen says they will be sending vaccine teams starting today. Photo: Ørn E. Borgen
14 million syringe tips
The kit includes everything from vaccine kits to cooling boxes to temperature gauges, which come in various shipments to municipalities, FHI has written in a guide to municipalities.
The Norwegian Health Directorate writes in a press release that they have purchased 11.4 million syringes and 14 million syringe tips. Different vaccines can have different doses, so they have bought different size syringes.
In addition to syringes and syringe tips, the Norwegian Health Directorate sends alcohol wipes to disinfect the skin, cotton swabs, plasters and wastebaskets for used syringe tips, they write.
In a detailed guide to vaccination in municipalities for the vaccine that should require an “ultracooling chain”, FHI writes that the cooling boxes and temperature gauges come in two shipments, and an information sheet will be sent at the same time separate on the use of cooling boxes and temperature gauges.
Two completely terminated deals
So far, Norway has completed two agreements on the resale of EU vaccines through Sweden, and work is underway to establish an agreement for the last four candidate vaccines.
Sweden’s vaccine coordinator Richard Bergström has told VG that there will be at least 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first quarter of 2021. It is this vaccine that is at the forefront of the EU approval process and the more difficult to distribute.
The rest of the vaccine kit will be shipped to all municipalities at a later date, likely in February or March 2021, writes FHI in the guide.
Because the Pfizer vaccine must be stored so cold, the plan is for Pfizer to deliver it to different locations in Norway. Chief physician Are Stuwitz Berg at FHI previously told VG that it will be done this way, depending on whether the vaccine is approved:
– We also want a decentralized storage of vaccines here with the help of regional health authorities. We cannot say exactly where these cold rooms will be. The municipalities will have the vaccine transported to the end, and when it reaches the municipality there is no longer a need to store it in -70 freezers, but then the vaccine has a shelf life of only 5 days, he said.
