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Rui Ivo, president of Infarmed, estimates that the first vaccines for covid-19, after approval by the European Medicines Agency and with the acquisition process to centralize in the European Union, may begin to arrive in Portugal early of 2021. “If there is approval soon, early next year, in January eventually, we can have the first doses of vaccine in Portugal. And in early summer we will have a very significant number of people covered,” he said in response to questions scored by Marcelo Rebelo. of Sousa.
Deliveries will be made gradually throughout the year. Rui Ivo estimates that more than five million doses may be available in the first quarter, around eight million in the second quarter and another two million in the last quarter of next year.
But first you have to assess the regulatory agent, which currently focuses mainly on three offerings: the vaccine being produced by the University of Oxford with AstraZeneca, that of Pfizer with BioNTech and that of Moderna.
The European Union already has procurement contracts established with four laboratories. AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sanofi, Jansen, the latter two in a not so advanced stage of clinical trials.
The first authorizations will be conditional and will require further monitoring of the results and effects in the vaccinated groups. But the preliminary results already announced by Pfizer and Moderna are promising, and both pharmaceutical companies indicate an efficacy of more than 90%, a value higher than initially expected. The data refer, however, to a small sample and it is still necessary to know a series of data to understand how decisive they will be in protecting the groups at greatest risk and in the spread of infections.
