In the early hours of this Thursday, a plane arrived in Venezuela, from the Russian Federation, with a shipment of 50 thousand doses of Sputnik-V vaccines and one million tablets of the antiviral Favipiravir, as part of the humanitarian airlift and the strategic alliance between both countries in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the reception at the “Simón Bolívar” International Airport, in La Guaira, the People’s Power Minister for Health, Carlos Alvarado, indicated that with this fourth shipment of vaccines the second dose of immunization for health personnel will be completed and It will continue with the vaccination of the elderly, which began last week, and will also include service personnel exposed to contact with patients, such as firefighters, Civil Protection, oxygen dispensers to hospitals.
“In Venezuela we have placed more than 200 thousand doses of this vaccine, with a very good acceptance by the community”, he said, specifying that the antidote prepared by the Gamaleya Center of Russia reaches almost 92% effectiveness.
Ministros Arreaza y Alvarado reciben tercer lote de vacunas Sputnik-V
He also explained that the Russian antiviral Favipiravir was included by the Venezuelan therapeutic committee as part of the treatment protocol against COVID-19, after research carried out in Russia and China that shows good effectiveness in preventing the replication of the virus in the body.
He asserted that this drug will be distributed immediately throughout the national territory, in order to serve 25 thousand patients, including with this endowment those infected with mild symptoms to prevent their progression to moderate.
Minister Alvarado stressed that despite the blockade and the unilateral coercive measures against the country, the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela makes every effort to diversify the sources of vaccines and guarantee the protection of the people, maintaining the goal of immunizing 70% of the population this year, in order to cut the chain of transmission and lower the incidence of infections.
In this sense, he added that in addition to the Russian and Chinese vaccines, the study of phase three of its Abdala vaccine and the possibility of producing it in the country was signed with sister Cuba, and more than half of the resources were canceled to the COVAX mechanism for the delivery of more than 11 million doses.