Former Social Democratic leader and political commentator Luís Marques Mendes announced this Sunday that Portugal will receive “about 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 comment space at SIC, Luís Marques Mendes revealed that the country should receive six different vaccines and “about 22 million doses”: 4.5 million doses of the vaccine produced by Biontech / Pfizer, 6.9 million vaccine doses from Astrazeneca / Oxford University, 4.5 million doses from Johnson & Johnson – Janssen, 1.9 million doses from Moderna and 4 million from Curevac.
“They are, in essence, all those with whom the European Union has made contracts and, when they start 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, stressing that the flu vaccine is effective “Between 40 and 45%”.
According to Luís Marques Mendes, the first vaccines may be approved by the EMA “as early as next December” and the first doses of the vaccines may arrive “in January”. Pfizer is expected to be “the first to arrive”.
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 “only in one dose”, but its evaluation is still “delayed”.
The vaccine will be “universal and free for all Portuguese” and the first groups of Portuguese society and professionals to be vaccinated are, according to the Government’s vaccination plan, the “elderly people, residents of the homes, professionals of the homes, professionals of health, security forces and civil protection agents, ”said the former PSD president.
–
