ARCHIVED - Spanish Covid immunization program hit again by AstraZeneca delivery failures
Under-supply makes it impossible for health authorities to schedule their vaccination programs
Yet another hitch has been encountered this week by Spain’s Ministry of Health as it attempts to accelerate the coronavirus vaccination program, with the announcement on Monday that the number of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine distributed to regional health services this week will be just 139,000, under 40 per cent of the already reduced figure of 350,000 which had been expected.
When the agreement with AstraZeneca was re-negotiated by the EU it was established that the company would supply 12.2 million doses to Spain by the end of September, but this is the second week in a row that there has been a shortfall in deliveries and this is adding to the disruption in the immunization campaign still further. Health authorities are finding it impossible to schedule their inoculation programs with confidence for the 60 to 69 age group – now the only one in which the AstraZeneca vaccine is being used in this country – due to irregular supplies, and the last time a batch of doses was received was on 2nd April, when 1.05 million arrived all at once.
To date, a total of 3,232,000 AstraZeneca doses have been received in Spain and 79.7 per cent of them (2,575,716) have been administered, according to the latest Ministry of Health update. However, only 133 people have received both doses, and many of those who received their first doses are now uncertain whether they will be offered a second one following the changes in policy regarding the use of the drug in this country over the last couple of weeks.
Yesterday 1.2 million Pfizer vaccines were distributed to the regional health services for their use. These are being used predominantly for the over 70s at the moment across much of the country.