Moderna’s first 47,500 vaccines arrive in Puerto Rico

The 47,500 vaccines from Modern that the government of Puerto Rico intended to receive arrived on the island this morning, the adjutant general of the National Guard confirmed Jose Reyes to the new day.

“All the vaccines we expected were received in four simultaneous deliveries,” said Reyes. The delivery took place three days after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved emergency use last Friday night, after a panel of experts gave its approval in a vote of 20 to 0.

The general assistant explained that some of the vaccine doses will be used to complete the vaccination of health workers who do not work in hospitals, while he expected labor to be sufficient to start sub-phase 1b.

Learn more: What are the differences between Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?

“We focus on health workers. We will move on to first responders and then to essential personnel, ”he said. “First responders such as police, firefighters, medical emergencies, municipal and national emergency management. All these groups are part of this first phase, as are essential personnel, people with critical circumstances. When the inventory comes in, we’ll open this series of vaccinations, ”said Reyes.

Once the vaccines arrived on the island, members of the National Guard monitored the doses at four locations: 20,000 were in the US military’s garrison fort of Buchanan in Guaynabo; 10,000 were located at the Central University of the Caribbean in Bayamón; another 10,000 are already stored at the School of Medicine in Ponce; and the remaining 7,500 were kept at the De Diego Research Foundation in San Juan. The vaccines from the Moderna company, the second to receive an emergency use permit from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), require freezers at -20 degrees Celsius.