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Former Social Democratic leader and political commentator Luís Marques Mendes announced this Sunday that Portugal will receive “around 22 million” doses of vaccines against Covid-19. Luís Marques Mendes said that, as of January, the country should start receiving the first doses of the vaccine and guarantees that “there will be vaccines for all Portuguese” and that this will be “universal and free for all Portuguese.”
In his usual space for comments in the SIC, Luís Marques Mendes revealed that the country should receive six different vaccines and “around 22 million doses”: 4.5 million doses of the vaccine produced by Biontech / Pfizer, 6.9 million doses of Astrazeneca / Oxford University vaccine, 4.5 million doses of Johnson & Johnson – Janssen, 1.9 million doses of Moderna and 4 million doses of Curevac.
“They are, basically, all those with whom the European Union has made contracts and, when they begin to be distributed, they will arrive in Portugal at exactly the same time as any other country in the European Union,” he said.
At the moment, three of these vaccines are already being evaluated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA): Pfizer, Astrazeneca and Moderna. “They are different in the type of vaccine, in the price and in the storage conditions, but in general they have a very high degree of efficacy, in the order of 90%”, said Luís Marques Mendes, highlighting that the influenza vaccine is effective ” Between 40 and 45% ”.
According to Luís Marques Mendes, the first vaccines can be approved by the EMA “from next December” and the first doses of the vaccines can arrive “in January.” Pfizer is expected to be “the first to come.”
Regarding the doses to be taken, Pfizer, Astrazeneca and Moderna should be taken “in two doses” by people, with intervals “of three to four weeks” between the first dose and the second. Johnson & Johnson – Janssen, on the other hand, should be taken “in one dose only,” but its evaluation is still “overdue.”
The vaccine will be “universal and free for all Portuguese” and the first groups in Portuguese society and professionals to be vaccinated are, according to the Government’s vaccination plan, the “elderly, household residents, household professionals, health professionals, security forces and civil protection agents, ”said the former president of the PSD.
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