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ARCHIVED - Spanish government outlines coronavirus vaccination plans
Plans for 13,000 vaccination points may depend on which vaccine becomes available
Priority for health workers and the elderly but the vaccine will remain voluntary
The last couple of weeks have provided an abundance of encouraging news regarding the development of various Covid-19 vaccines, to the extent where even the normally cautious World Health Organization has stated that there is a realistic chance of the pandemic coming to an end in the foreseeable future, and on Tuesday plans for a single nationwide vaccination in Spain program are set to be approved by Cabinet.
The bare bones of the program, according to information supplied in advance on Monday, are that around 13,000 vaccination points will be established across the country in January in an effort to ensure that by the spring a “significant” proportion of the population is immunized against the coronavirus, but there are many aspects which are as yet unclear and further details are awaited. Among these are such basic issues as which vaccine will be used, which members of the population will receive top priority and whether vaccination will be made obligatory, as surveys suggest that a high percentage of Spaniards are at best reluctant to receive the jabs.
At present the indications are that the first to be offered the vaccine when it becomes available will be healthcare professionals, those living and working in homes for the elderly and others aged over 65, as the mortality rate of Covid-19 is far higher among those in these brackets. People who are unable to work from home are also likely to be placed near the front of the queue.
The Health Minister has already said that it is not his intention to oblige members of the public to receive a vaccine, but of course, this has still not been confirmed 100%.
Although the Ministry of Health has means with which it could force people to accept vaccination their intention is not to use them for the moment, believing that as members of the public learn more about the products which have been developed there will be wider acceptance of their safety.
Of course, it is still too early to finalize the exact details, and it should be remembered that the clinical testing of the most advanced vaccines is still not complete. Spain has already contracted purchases of the products developed by AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen, BioNTech-Pfizer and CureVac and negotiations are on-going with others including Moderna through the EU central purchasing programme, but it is not known which will become available first and which will be the preferred method of immunization. The Health Minister indicated on Monday that he believes a vaccination programme will begin in January, although at the moment of course, it is impossible to confirm details until the vaccines have been approved, licensed and manufactured, a process which will still take weeks to complete.
Some experts warn that the idea of creating 13,000 vaccination points will be feasible only if the AstraZeneca vaccine is used, as it can be stored for months at between -2ºC and -8ºC without the need for ultra-freezing: the AstraZeneca product is also significantly cheaper than the others, and presents fewer problems in terms of transport and distribution.
The Minister of Health, however, made the point at the weekend that Spain already has a network of 13,000 vaccination points as this is the network of health centres used every year for the annual flu vaccination campaign in which 12-14 million people are vaccinated annually. In an interview about the topic at the weekend, the Minister reiterated that Spain successfully vaccinates this amount of people every winter and is perfectly capable of using the exisiting infrastructure to cover the vaccinations campaign for covid. Should the Pfizer vaccine become available, there are sufficient infrastructures in place to handle the management of the vaccines and their storing at colder temperatures.
It is also entirely possible that a variety of vaccines will be used, in which case the most appropriate vaccines will be sent to the areas which have the most suitable storage facilities for processing and distribution.
Meanwhile, although the latest restrictions on movement appear to have succeeded in slowing the second wave of infection, the numbers are still high, and while optimism regarding the vaccines is inevitable the figures provide a reminder that hundreds of people in Spain are still dying from coronavirus every day.
Despite these caveats, though, the government’s aim is to ensure that a substantial part of the population is vaccinated by mid-2021, while at the same time warning that life as we knew it before March of this year will not resume immediately. Social gatherings will still need to be limited and facemasks will remain a part of everyday life for the foreseeable future, but at least the developments regarding vaccines provide some light at the end of the tunnel.