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DETROIT: The US distribution of a second COVID-19 vaccine, from Moderna, is set to begin shipping to more than 3,800 sites this weekend, greatly expanding the launch started last week with Pfizer, it said Saturday. the pharmaceutical company and distributor McKesson (December 19).
The Food and Drug Administration approved an emergency use authorization for the Moderna vaccine on Friday, the second after Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
Workers at the pharmaceutical service provider Catalent’s facilities in Bloomington, Indiana, will fill and package vials with Moderna vaccine and deliver them to McKesson, which will ship doses from facilities including Louisville, Kentucky and Memphis, Tennessee. Those locations are near United Parcel Service and FedEx air hubs.
The start of delivery of the Moderna vaccine will significantly expand the availability of COVID-19 vaccines as deaths in the United States related to the respiratory virus set records.
“This is now a foot race between the vaccine and COVID,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said at a virus briefing on Friday.
He said the state expects to receive 346,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine next week. These will go to 292 medical facilities across the state.
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Pfizer organized its own distribution system, but the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, led by an army general, is run by Moderna. The Moderna delivery system will have some of the same players as Pfizer’s, but it will differ in key ways.
Shipping companies UPS and FedEx are prioritizing vaccines on planes and trucks that carry Christmas gifts and other cargo. Your drivers will handle most of the Moderna last-mile vaccine deliveries. They go directly to vaccination sites, unlike Pfizer, which was sent to large centers and redistributed.
Moderna’s vaccine is available in quantities as small as 100 doses and can be stored for 30 days in standard temperature refrigerators, while Pfizer’s inoculations come in boxes of 975 doses, must be shipped and stored at -70 degrees Celsius and can be kept for only 5 days at standard refrigerator temperatures.
The low temperature logistics chain for two Covid-19 vaccines AFP / Paz PIZARRO
Texas and Arkansas officials told Reuters they expect Moderna to be the primary vaccine for rural areas, which often lack the ultra-cold storage equipment to store trays full of Pfizer vials. Once the plastic of a Pfizer 975 dose tray is opened, recipients have 120 hours to use the vaccine.
US Army Gen. Gus Perna, director of operations for the government’s Operation Warp Speed program, said in a press call on Monday that the Moderna vaccine doses will be shipped to 3,825 US sites.
Initial doses were administered to health professionals.
The Walgreens and CVS pharmacy programs to distribute the Pifzer vaccine to long-term care facilities are expected to begin Monday, said Gareth Rhodes, a member of the New York governor’s COVID-19 task force.
And an advisory panel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday will consider which groups should be vaccinated next.
READ: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sinovac: A Look at Three Key COVID-19 Vaccines
“The logistics will be easier with the Moderna vaccine,” said Jesse Breidenbach, senior executive director of pharmacy for Sanford Health, which operates nearly four dozen hospitals in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
“Thirty days in the refrigerator will make it a little easier to handle,” said Breidenbach.
Still, vaccine doses must travel with security guards, including U.S. Marshals, and will be stored in locked refrigerators.
US officials have said they expect to have 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines by the end of the year, enough to inoculate 20 million people.
Both vaccines were 95 percent effective in preventing disease in pivotal clinical trials without serious safety concerns.
Separately, US officials said Pfizer is preparing to distribute an additional 2 million doses of its vaccine to locations in the US next week, and preparations for the shipment will begin over the weekend.
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