Image by x3 from Pixabay
More than a quarter-of-a-million additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine are on their way from Spain to New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today (9 September).
The extra doses will arrive in Auckland on Friday morning to help meet the current surge in demand for vaccination.
“It’s been heartening to see so many New Zealanders getting vaccinated recently and the additional doses that we have purchased from Spain will help us provide additional capacity and walk-in sites through September,” the PM said.
“We’re vaccinating well ahead of plan and these additional vaccines will ensure we can continue to ramp up our vaccination programme.
The Spanish shipment is in addition to New Zealand’s regular weekly delivery from Pfizer, which is also expected to arrive in the country this weekend.
Ardern said New Zealand anticipated receiving a total of 1.8-million doses from Pfizer throughout the month of September, in addition to the doses purchased from Spain. This meant there were no plans to slow down the rollout.
“This is the result of excellent collaboration between officials from New Zealand, Spain, the European Commission and Pfizer to secure this agreement. I wish to say thank you to those involved, especially President Pedro Sánchez of Spain,” Ardern stated.
“We are deeply grateful to Spain for their cooperation and agreement to sell these doses to New Zealand. This reaffirms the strong links between our countries and is in the spirit of the global values shared by New Zealand and Spain.
“We also wish to extend our appreciation to the European Commission, for coordinating this purchase and to Belgium for their important role in producing the vaccines that New Zealand is the recipient of.”
Ardern added that she expected a further announcement would be made next week about an agreement to buy additional Pfizer vaccines from a second country.