The new batch of Moderna vaccines is already in Colombia

After weeks of waiting, at 8:50 pm this Sunday, September 19, Colombia returned to stock up with Moderna’s anticovid vaccines. Different government agencies confirmed that the country received 689,220 vaccines through a direct agreement with the pharmaceutical company. Likewise, it was detailed that the doses arrived directly from Atlanta, United States.

“689,220 doses of Moderna vaccine arrive in Colombia for the National Vaccination Plan,” informed Fernando Ruiz, Minister of Health, through his Twitter account.

This news is very important because In Colombia, Moderna’s vaccines had been out of stock since the end of August. In fact, this lot was expected to arrive in the country from Thursday, but the delivery had to be postponed. The Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic (Dapre) indicated that the delay in that case was related to logistical issues.

“Today in the afternoon vaccines are released to Moderna’s logistics operator in the United States. As refrigerated containers are required, due to availability, they would be loaded on Friday and 689,220 doses of this batch would arrive Saturday night or Sunday morning in Colombia. We are moving forward as agreed, “wrote Víctor Muñoz, director of Dapre, on his Twitter account.

These vaccines were received by the Colombian government in the United States, specifically in Memphis (Tennessee), and it meant that the administration of the president, Iván Duque, had to take care of the logistics process to bring them to the country. Taking that into account, this scenario is that the delay occurred.

Now the question is whether the deliveries of the other batches will also be delayed. In fact, this week that ends, two batches were planned to arrive, the second with 566,160 doses.

Likewise, in the last two weeks of the month another two batches should arrive, these yes directly. Minister Ruiz explained that During the third week of September (from 20 to 26) 1,402,500 vaccines would arrive and in the fourth week of the month (27 to 30) 1,402,500 would arrive.

In this sense, the Minister recalled the schedule for the arrival of vaccines to the country set for September. This month it is projected to receive 12,751,450 doses of which 1,356,030 will be from Pfizer; 1,108,000 from AstraZeneca; 4,080,000 from Moderna and 2,000,000 from Janssen, all obtained through bilateral agreements. In addition, to complete the goal, other biologics will arrive through the Covax mechanism, 998,420 from Pfizer and 2,092,000 from Sinovac. Likewise, the Government of Spain announced a donation of 1,117,000 doses.

The national government hopes that the pharmaceutical companies will comply with the agreements because it depends on the achievement of the new goal of the National Vaccination Plan set by President Iván Duque himself. The president revealed on August 31 that he expects 41 million vaccines to be applied in the country before the end of September.

“We do not stop working with ambition and with concrete goals, that is why our goal is that, as a minimum, we can close this month of September with 41 million doses applied in the national territory. Obviously, as more doses arrive, speed up the pace ”, said the president.

This statement means that in the remainder of the month almost four million vaccines should be applied, either first, second or single doses, since the current number of doses exceeds 37 million.

Specifically, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Health (MinSalud), as of 11:59 pm on September 17, a total of 338,331,643 doses of the vaccine against covid-19 had already been applied in Colombia. According to the same report, the number of fully vaccinated Colombians, that is, those who have already received two doses of the biological, amounts to 13,288,051 people at this time, while 2,808,404 people have been immunized with single doses.

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