April 22, 2021 – Thanks to a joint operation between Aerolíneas Argentinas and Lufthansa, another batch of one million doses of the Sinopharm
vaccine will arrive in our country.
A total of 755,200 vaccines will be carried in two flights operated by Aerolíneas Argentinas to Beijing via Madrid, which are scheduled to depart
on April 23 and 24 at 12:50 p.m.
These flights will be arriving in the country on April 25 and 26 at 7:10 p.m. with flight numbers AR1061 and AR1051, respectively. One will bring
384,000 doses, while the other will carry 371,200 doses.
The remaining 244,800 doses will be landing in the Ezeiza International Airport on April 28 at 10:50 p.m. via Frankfurt under flight number LH8264
operated by Lufthansa.
This time, each vial includes one dose of the Sinopharm vaccine per box. This means that the cargo volume is three times larger, which explains why
the vaccines have to be carried in three separate flights.
The boxes with the vaccines manufactured by China National Pharmaceutical Group Corp are, in turn, packaged in containers known as ‘envirotainers’
which, according to the specific instructions given by the lab, may only be carried in an aircraft’s cargo compartment.
The Ministry of Health informed that the two million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 which are expected to arrive in the country
in the upcoming weeks will be used to complete the vaccination schedules that have already been implemented.
Said recommendation was informed and agreed in the context of a meeting of the Argentine Vaccination Commission held this past Tuesday (April 20)
and a meeting of the Federal Health Council held on April 21.
This measure was implemented based on the fact that, with the arrival of these new vaccine cargo, all agreements in place executed with the manufacturing
lab have been performed, and also taking into account that there is no fixed date to enter into new agreements and schedule potential new deliveries.
Under these circumstances, what was timely planned in the context of the prioritization of the first doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 and the deferment
of the second doses for at least three months continues to be in effect for the rest of the vaccines. In the case of these particular supplies, performance of
said plans will be considered duly completed with the arrival of the two million doses that are expected at this stage.