Carolina Darias highlights international significance of Novavax vaccine manufacturing in Spain

"It puts Spain in a tremendously cutting-edge position", said the Spanish minister after her meeting with leaders from the biopharmarceutical company at its plant in Pontevedra. The meeting was also attended by the Health Councillor from the Regional Government of Galicia, Julio García Comesaña; the Director of the Spanish Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency (Spanish acronym: AEMPS), María Jesús Lamas; the Central Government Representative in Galicia, Javier Losada; the CEO of the Zendal group, Andrés Fernández; the Mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero; and the Mayor of Porriño, Eva García de la Torre, among others.

Carolina Darias was referring to the fact that both antigen manufacture and vial-filling will take place in the Galician town, something that she said is a "source of pride" for the entire Government of Spain. Along the same lines, the Minister for Health thanked the Zendal group for its commitment and "essential" work against COVID-19.

Carolina Darias went on to say that Novavax could be added to the European coronavirus vaccine portfolio following the Janssen vaccine (of the Johnson & Johnson group), from April, once the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has completed its assessment processes.

The Minister for Health welcomed the positive results obtained during clinical trials by Novavax, which are now at stage 3. These are "hopeful results", even against some of the new COVID-19 variants, such as B.1.351, more commonly known as the South African variant.

Vaccination Strategy

The Minister for Health took stock of the Vaccination Strategy in Spain to date, with the delivery of more than 4.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the autonomous regions.

Carolina Darias said that more than 3.2 million vaccine doses have been administered up until yesterday and that a total of 1.2 million people have now completed the course of vaccination. Furthermore, she welcomed the fact that, this week and for the first time since the vaccination process began on 27 December, the number of doses supplied has exceeded the number of new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

To end, she announced an increase in the arrival of COVID-19 vaccine doses in the second quarter of the year, a time for which she confirmed that the Government of Spain is already working with the regional government authorities on the design of their strategic plans.

Non official translation