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The 9,750 doses arrived this morning in the Coimbra area, from where they will depart this afternoon to be distributed to the different hospitals, to begin vaccination on Sunday. These first doses are intended for health professionals at the university hospitals in Porto, São João, Coimbra, Lisbon North and Lisbon Central.
The vehicle carrying the vaccines, two boxes that weigh 41 kg in total and must be below 80 degrees, was escorted by various security forces and entered the perimeter of the storage unit around 9:45 am.
The process of opening the vehicle, which was sealed, was accompanied on the spot by several government officials, led by the Minister of Health, Marta Temido.
From this storage point, some vaccines still go out today to distribute to the vaccination sites, the five hospital centers that will begin with the vaccination tomorrow.
The refrigerated trucks with the doses planned for European Union (EU) countries left the Belgian factory of the North American pharmaceutical company, located in Puurs, in the northeast of Belgium, on Wednesday morning, under strong security measures, with two vehicles of police forces to escort each of the three heavy vehicles after loading.
Vaccination in Portugal begins on Sunday, being a common initiative of the EU member states and, like other European countries, the vaccine is optional and free. Last Monday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) considered the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine safe, for which it granted an authorization “for emergency use”, in a process that has advanced at an unprecedented rate.
In the Hospital and University Center of Coimbra, for example, vaccination will begin tomorrow at 10:30 am, with more than two thousand professionals to vaccinate in this first phase.
Days before the start of vaccination against Covid-19 in Portugal, the General Directorate of Health defined specific rules.
For example, allergy sufferers who have had severe reactions to medications or foods will need to be vaccinated in hospitals, and anyone with a serious acute illness will have to wait until fully recovered to receive the vaccine.
These DGS rules are derived from the indications sent to all member states by the European Medicines Agency.
This batch of 9,750 doses will be reinforced with the delivery of another 70,200 doses, which are scheduled to arrive in the country on Monday, increasing the total available for administration until the end of the year to 79,950 vaccines.
The expansion of the number of vaccines already at the beginning of the vaccination plan against covid-19 will lead, according to Marta Temido, to the expansion of the number of selected professionals and covered hospitals, assuming the minister her hope of full coverage of the network. hospital of the National Health Service (SNS). The extension of vaccination at this stage to residential structures for institutionalized people is also planned.
Between December and the first quarter of 2021, which corresponds to the period of the first phase defined by the working group responsible for the vaccination plan, Portugal expects to receive 1.2 million vaccines, distributed in three periods: 312,975 doses in December. and January, 429 thousand doses in February and 487,500 in March.
