After President Alberto Fernandez acknowledged the delay in the vaccination campaign against the Corona virus, the Argentine Airlines flight carrying a new shipment of Sputnik V vaccines took off Thursday night from Moscow. It is scheduled to arrive at Ezeiza International Airport on Friday around 3 pm.
The number of doses transported this time on board the national airline has not been reported, amid a vaccine shortage that has worsened in recent days and has raised great concern.
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An Airbus A330-200, registered LV-GIF, on its seventh flight in search of vaccines, departed Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport with AR1061 nomination at 04:08 (local time), 22:08 in Argentina.
He spent in the Russian capital just over 6 hours on the track. During this period, vaccines were loaded.
How was the process
The aircraft with the AR1060 filter took off at 1:15 this Thursday from Ezeiza Airport. After 15 and a half hours into the flight, he arrived in the Russian capital at 10:54 PM (local time), 4:54 PM in Argentina.
It is a “great responsibility for the entire team of our airline,” the company president said, Pablo SirianiOn his Twitter account
The whole process, from the moment he leaves Buenos Aires to his return from Moscow, will take 40 hours. The plane crossed its way to Moscow as a “ferry”, meaning without payload or passengers, and returned on a cargo flight.
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As reported, the operation is responsible for 10 crew members, including pilots and co-pilots. They are joined by freight and maintenance technicians and cabin crew. sum There are 20 people on board.
Previous flights
This is the seventh flight of this type by Argentine Airlines since the end of December, when it made its first flight to Moscow to bring vaccines, and in the first two flights, 600 thousand doses of Sputnik the fifth arrived in the country, while it was on the third, they were 220 thousand.
On the fourth flight, 400,000 vaccines were flown in. Another 904,000 doses followed from the People’s Republic of China. It was the fifth flight again to Russia to bring a load of 517 thousand doses and in the sixth operation, again from Moscow, 732 thousand arrived.
In total, they reached the country 3374,000 doses Vaccines from Russia and China.
The Sputnik f It is the only vaccine against the Coronavirus that stems from it Of ingredients Necessary to complete the immunization.
Delay in vaccination
There is growing concern in the government about dose shortages to continue the vaccination campaign. Until now Only 1.02% of Argentines were vaccinated with the two doses.
Meanwhile, the government is awaiting details of the arrival of 3 million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine. Sources from Casa Rosada said in this case Blameless A convoy of aircraft is needed to complete the operation.
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Vaccines AstraZeneca, Which was scheduled to arrive in March, will finally arrive in the country in May due to the delays that Mexico was subjected to in filling the more than 22 million doses stipulated in the agreement signed between the two countries with the University of Oxford and Britain. Pharmaceutical company.
